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NASA study reveals Venus crust surprise

science.nasa.gov

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Re: NASA study reveals Venus crust surprise

#11

Post by dylan604 »

gamescr wrote: post #8
WalterBright wrote: post #2

I wonder if Venus could be terraformed via a sun shield placed in orbit around it. How big would it have to be to reverse the runaway greenhouse effect?

Part of the problem is having too much atmosphere. In the original Cosmos Carl Sagan talked about a hypothetical solution where we capture asteroids, and throw them at Venus in such a way that they just nick the atmosphere and knock large quantities of atmosphere out into space. One you reduce atmospheric pressure to a certain level, things could become habitable. Then throw in iron form the atseroid belt to react wi…

Couldn't we just build a MegaMaid and suck the atmosphere out? If we're going to go sci-fi, it seem easier to hoover it out than capture an asteroid and nick the atmosphere just right.

Re: NASA study reveals Venus crust surprise

#12

Post by shepardrtc »

dylan604 wrote: post #11
gamescr wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the problem is having too much atmosphere. In the original Cosmos Carl Sagan talked about a hypothetical solution where we capture asteroids, and throw them at Venus in such a way that they just nick the atmosphere and knock large quantities of atmosphere out into space. One you reduce atmospheric pressure to a certain level, things could become habitable. Then throw in iron form the atseroid belt to react wi…

Couldn't we just build a MegaMaid and suck the atmosphere out? If we're going to go sci-fi, it seem easier to hoover it out than capture an asteroid and nick the atmosphere just right.

Something like a solar powered space elevator that just blows atmosphere into the sun

Re: NASA study reveals Venus crust surprise

#13

Post by bdamm »

shepardrtc wrote: post #12
dylan604 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't we just build a MegaMaid and suck the atmosphere out? If we're going to go sci-fi, it seem easier to hoover it out than capture an asteroid and nick the atmosphere just right.

Something like a solar powered space elevator that just blows atmosphere into the sun

That would require a lot of energy to ensure the gasses escape Venus' gravitational pull, which would in turn effectively be a rocket. So then we'd be adjusting to ensure we don't mess with Venus' orbit too much.

Re: NASA study reveals Venus crust surprise

#14

Post by BuyMyBitcoins »

dylan604 wrote: post #11
gamescr wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the problem is having too much atmosphere. In the original Cosmos Carl Sagan talked about a hypothetical solution where we capture asteroids, and throw them at Venus in such a way that they just nick the atmosphere and knock large quantities of atmosphere out into space. One you reduce atmospheric pressure to a certain level, things could become habitable. Then throw in iron form the atseroid belt to react wi…

Couldn't we just build a MegaMaid and suck the atmosphere out? If we're going to go sci-fi, it seem easier to hoover it out than capture an asteroid and nick the atmosphere just right.

Then, move the MegaMaid into an orbit around Mars and go from suck to blow. Venus has too much atmosphere, Mars has too little. Win Win.

Re: NASA study reveals Venus crust surprise

#15

Post by gammarator »

perihelions wrote: post #6

- "Several upcoming missions, including NASA’s DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging)" DAVINCI is actually cancelled in the latest budget request. For obvious reasons, the NASA press office (the OP) won't talk about this. But 50% of NASA's science funding is gone. https://spacenews.com/white-house-proposal-would-slash-nasa-...

> But 50% of NASA's science funding is gone.

The proposed cuts to science are catastrophic, but there’s still time to call your Congressperson.

https://aas.org/posts/news/2025/05/week-of-action

Re: NASA study reveals Venus crust surprise

#16

Post by netsharc »

quotemstr wrote: post #10

Venus is a damned shame. Had planetary evolution gone just slightly differently, the solar system could have had two habitable water planets. Mars, owing to its size, was never going to cut it, but Venus might have.

I wonder how a system with 2 planets with intelligent lifeforms would've developed culturally and politically... if both civilizations grew at the same rate, 2 Galileos would've looked at the other planet and figured out "we have neighbors!", but it'd be several hundred more years before communication could be done. Even know we don't have manned missions to Mars or Venus...

Re: NASA study reveals Venus crust surprise

#17

Post by floxy »

geuis wrote: post #9

I'm blown away at the number of huge volcanos and relative lack of craters. If that's right, Venus must recycle its surface relatively often.

Are you just looking at the photo to determine volcanoes and craters? Wouldn't we expect that with so much atmosphere on Venus, that meteors would have a much harder time reaching the surface? That is, much larger ones would burn up or get deflected than on Earth.

Re: NASA study reveals Venus crust surprise

#18

Post by lisper »

netsharc wrote: post #16
quotemstr wrote: post #10

Venus is a damned shame. Had planetary evolution gone just slightly differently, the solar system could have had two habitable water planets. Mars, owing to its size, was never going to cut it, but Venus might have.

I wonder how a system with 2 planets with intelligent lifeforms would've developed culturally and politically... if both civilizations grew at the same rate, 2 Galileos would've looked at the other planet and figured out "we have neighbors!", but it'd be several hundred more years before communication could be done. Even know we don't have manned missions to Mars or Venus...

> a system with 2 planets with intelligent lifeforms

That is an extremely unlikely scenario because both intelligent life forms would have had to evolve before either of them developed space flight. It took homo sapiens 4 Gyr to evolve in the first place but only 100 kyr to develop space flight after that. So the odds are slim to none.

Re: NASA study reveals Venus crust surprise

#19

Post by jovas »

WalterBright wrote: post #2

I wonder if Venus could be terraformed via a sun shield placed in orbit around it. How big would it have to be to reverse the runaway greenhouse effect?

Venus has a retrograde day that is longer than it's year.

While the atmosphere is a big problem, even without this issue the rotation would be problematic.

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