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NASA study reveals Venus crust surprise
41–50 of 111 posts
Re: NASA study reveals Venus crust surprise
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
Luckily we are up gravity well from them and also have a moon as a great source of low launch cost projectiles.
If the Venusians had the technology to lob rocks, they'd have the technology to do so from the asteroid belt. They don't need to mine them their own non-existent moon.
Re: NASA study reveals Venus crust surprise
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
If the commenters are discussing diverting enough meteors to terraform Venus, there's enough fantasy to consider using nukes to apply the necessary torque to speed the orbit up
If we're spitballing, one could simply angle the impacts of asteroids to add momentum in the desired direction.
Re: NASA study reveals Venus crust surprise
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Luckily we are up gravity well from them and also have a moon as a great source of low launch cost projectiles.
Using Hohmann transfer, I believe the energy cost is the same both ways. Of course as you point out we have the Moon, "they" have none. So we'd have plenty of rocks to throw. That said, we'd have to throw much bigger rocks to penetrate their atmosphere. And the likely (to me) actual plans would be: Us: launch to the Moon, set up there, launch rocks from the Moon to Venus. Venusians: launch and travel to the asteroid…
Same energy to enter the orbit, but the kinetic energy per unit mass should be a whole lot higher at Venus than Earth, so each of your shots count for a lot more. But yeah, the main advantage is the moon. And you wouldn't launch things from the moon. You would launch pieces of the moon from mass drivers.
The situation I replied to assumed they were both inhabitable planets which I assume means Earth like atmosphere on Venus. The thick atmosphere complicates things, but I don't think you actually have to hit the ground. Tunguska didn't even get near the ground and it still leveled 1000 km^2. Also if Venus has the atmosphere there's no point of a war since there's no benefit to conquest in either direction.
Re: NASA study reveals Venus crust surprise
#45Earlier 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.
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.
It wouldn't do Mars any good. Lacking a magnetosphere, any atmosphere you add will get stripped away by the Sun.
Re: NASA study reveals Venus crust surprise
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It wouldn't do Mars any good. Lacking a magnetosphere, any atmosphere you add will get stripped away by the Sun.
I’ve read that a large asteroid could be positioned at a particular Mars L point and it would protect the planets atmosphere from being stripped by the sun.
Re: NASA study reveals Venus crust surprise
#47Venus 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.
Crazy factoid one: The Earth masses more than everything else between the Sun and Jupiter combined.
Crazy factoid two: Venus is 80% of the Earth's mass.
Re: NASA study reveals Venus crust surprise
#48- "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-...
The full proposed budget is available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Fiscal... folks are interested in seeing the whole picture and reasoning.
wp-content?
Am I the only one shocked to see wordpress here.
Re: NASA study reveals Venus crust surprise
#49> Scientists expected the outermost layer of Venus’ crust would grow thicker and thicker over time I recall watching this NOVA episode in 1995 where scientists had no idea whether the lithosphere is thick or thin. Seek to 36 minutes: https://archive.org/details/VenusUnveiled/NOVA.S22E10.Venus....
I remember that episode being excellent! Scientists could tell that Venus’s crust was somehow reforming because of the crater pattern but the didn’t know whether it was gradual change or something catastrophic, and the thickness of the crust would point to one way or the other but they didn’t have that data. > The paper used modeling to determine that its crust is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) thick on average and a…
Thick compared to Earth, but I think it has an especially thin crust.
Re: NASA study reveals Venus crust surprise
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
If the commenters are discussing diverting enough meteors to terraform Venus, there's enough fantasy to consider using nukes to apply the necessary torque to speed the orbit up
Why don't we simply vaporize Venus entirely and construct our own bespoke planet in its place, if it's so damn problematic