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Ok, this is a bit of a tangent but this is a smart crowd and I’ve been wondering something. Was reading about the Silurian hypothesis from NASA researchers, wh

by gdubs 8y ago

Ok, this is a bit of a tangent but this is a smart crowd and I’ve been wondering something. Was reading about the Silurian hypothesis from NASA researchers, which talks about how hard it could be to detect a previous technological society in the geological record. (Harder than I’d assumed.) [1] Given that — and climate change being top-of-mind — I was thinking about Venus and wondering: how certain/uncertain are scientists that Venus’s greenhouse effect wasn’t caused by a technologically advanced society, a very long time ago? From my understanding, it’s so hot there that anything we’ve sent has burned up rather quickly. If it’s indeed very difficult to detect a previous civilization in the geological record on earth, what does that say about Venus? 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silurian_hypothesis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silurian_hypothesis

yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
That feels nonfalsifiable? Unless there's some persistent markers (oddities in the chemistry of the atmosphere, perhaps) there wouldn't be any way to know.
3pt14159 8y ago
We know very little about Venus. Unlike most people that think that Mars is a future human world, I think that either spacecraft or Venus will be our secondary homes in this solar system. All it takes is to get 40 kms off the ground in Venus and a human could walk outside. All you would need is oxygen, which is already trivially supplied with today's technology. If we bio-engineered some plants to create pockets of lighter gas they could float in the air. Energy generation would be easy because of the thermal differential to the surface. The biggest problem for being outside longterm (years) is the lack of a ionosphere of similar strength to Earth, but I think that could be tackled. The psychological impact of long days could also be partially mitigated by having the bioengineered pods use sails or engines to follow dusk and go in and out of it, simulating an earth day. But similar gravity and tons of potential compared to shitty Mars.
- dmytrish 8y ago
  > If we bio-engineered some plants to create pockets of lighter gas they could float in the air. Those plants would also need to be able live in an atmosphere that contains seven times more sulfuric acid than water vapors. It's not easy to sustain protein life outside of Earth. Still a nicer place than Mars, I agree.
pp19dd 8y ago
It boggles the mind. All of it. The scale of space, the scale of time, our own tiny brief existence in it. The possibility that several civilization collapses occurred right here and we wouldn't know it. The possibility that life elsewhere in the universe came and went and the light informing us of it won't reach us before we possibly burn out. Meanwhile we're just a flicker from a spent flintwheel. The thing that gave me a particular "oh" moment was reading the study that correlated Earth's geologic events (mass extinctions, impacts, etc) timed to our Sun transiting through the spiral arms of our galaxy. Fun read: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1309.4838.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1309.4838.pdf
marcosdumay 8y ago
All the carbon that we are releasing into the atmosphere was there at the beginning, and was taken out by life. So I do think it's quite unlikely that a civilization can appear in a planet that has enough carbon on its crust to make it completely unsuitable for life.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- gdubs 8y ago
  Interesting - could you expand on this a little further? (Edit: sounds like there’s been recent research suggesting there was a decent window of time where life might have had a chance to appear on Venus: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hellish-venus-might-have-been-habitable-for-billions-of-years/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hellish-venus-mig...)
  - marcosdumay 8y ago
    Yeah, I didn't take the Sun heating up into account. Whatever you take from astronomers is going to be better based (and take more factor into account) than my speculation.

by gdubs 8y ago

yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago

That feels nonfalsifiable? Unless there's some persistent markers (oddities in the chemistry of the atmosphere, perhaps) there wouldn't be any way to know.

3pt14159 8y ago

We know very little about Venus. Unlike most people that think that Mars is a future human world, I think that either spacecraft or Venus will be our secondary homes in this solar system. All it takes is to get 40 kms off the ground in Venus and a human could walk outside. All you would need is oxygen, which is already trivially supplied with today's technology. If we bio-engineered some plants to create pockets of lighter gas they could float in the air. Energy generation would be easy because of the thermal differential to the surface. The biggest problem for being outside longterm (years) is the lack of a ionosphere of similar strength to Earth, but I think that could be tackled. The psychological impact of long days could also be partially mitigated by having the bioengineered pods use sails or engines to follow dusk and go in and out of it, simulating an earth day. But similar gravity and tons of potential compared to shitty Mars.

dmytrish 8y ago
> If we bio-engineered some plants to create pockets of lighter gas they could float in the air. Those plants would also need to be able live in an atmosphere that contains seven times more sulfuric acid than water vapors. It's not easy to sustain protein life outside of Earth. Still a nicer place than Mars, I agree.

pp19dd 8y ago

It boggles the mind. All of it. The scale of space, the scale of time, our own tiny brief existence in it. The possibility that several civilization collapses occurred right here and we wouldn't know it. The possibility that life elsewhere in the universe came and went and the light informing us of it won't reach us before we possibly burn out. Meanwhile we're just a flicker from a spent flintwheel. The thing that gave me a particular "oh" moment was reading the study that correlated Earth's geologic events (mass extinctions, impacts, etc) timed to our Sun transiting through the spiral arms of our galaxy. Fun read: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1309.4838.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1309.4838.pdf

marcosdumay 8y ago

All the carbon that we are releasing into the atmosphere was there at the beginning, and was taken out by life. So I do think it's quite unlikely that a civilization can appear in a planet that has enough carbon on its crust to make it completely unsuitable for life.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
gdubs 8y ago
Interesting - could you expand on this a little further? (Edit: sounds like there’s been recent research suggesting there was a decent window of time where life might have had a chance to appear on Venus: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hellish-venus-might-have-been-habitable-for-billions-of-years/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hellish-venus-mig...)
- marcosdumay 8y ago
  Yeah, I didn't take the Sun heating up into account. Whatever you take from astronomers is going to be better based (and take more factor into account) than my speculation.