10 ms·
Why is Venus hell and Earth an Eden?
- pfdietz 1y agoAnd once the water was in Venus' atmosphere, it could reach high altitude, where it would be dissociated by solar radiation. The hydrogen could then escape to space. The signature of this remains in the isotope ratio of deuterium to ordinary hydrogen in the atmosphere there: deuterium enriched by two orders of magnitude above the level seen on Earth.
- taneq 1y agoOk, so this is all leading to one very specific place: An anarchic society of steampunk airships harvesting Deuterium from the shirtsleeve zone in Venus’ upper atmosphere.
- westmeal 1y agoWhat would they want with it?
- est31 1y agoDeuterium might be the oil of the future as one can do fusion with it easily (in comparison).
- pfdietz 1y agoTo make enough giant H bombs to blow Venus' atmosphere into space? This scheme would have some negative aspects. BTW, hydrogen on Mars is enriched in D by a factor of 5 relative to Earth.
- taneq 1y agoThey'd export it to Earth in exchange for other necessities. Airship parts, water, protein bars, TV shows. Earth would then use the deuterium for its 'free unlimited energy' fusion reactors.
- neuroelectron 1y agoBecause of the distance from the sun
- gerdesj 1y agoQuite. Its just so.
- Mistletoe 1y agoThat’s part of it but the dense CO2 atmosphere is the major issue. Don’t worry, we are trying to get there as fast as we can to Hell as well.
- orionblastar 1y agoDon't forget the corrusive atmosphere that is acid and eats up space probes.
- SilverElfin 1y agoWhat’s the worst case CO2 on earth? Is it as bad as Venus?
- andrewflnr 1y agoAlmost the entire length of the linked article is spent answering that question in detail.
- chasil 1y agoVenus does not have a molten core, and there is no magnetic field protecting the atmosphere from the solar winds. This is not likely the sole reason, but it must be a factor. Mercury does have a magnetic field, Mars does not.
- pfdietz 1y agoVenus is thought to have a (at least partially) molten core. It doesn't have a magnetic field, but that could be due to the slow rotation.
- kulahan 1y agoCould be for a million reasons honestly. Could’ve cooled too quickly or too slowly as well.
- kulahan 1y agoMars, interestingly, was just determined to have a core almost identical to Earth’s as I understand it. This is not the sole determinant of course - you still need enough volatiles, enough gravity to maintain a hold on the lightest elements across billions of years, and tectonics to keep refreshing the atmosphere. Unfortunately for us all, Mars has none of those. There may be other significant factors as well.
- codq 1y agoWithout tectonics, is terraforming Mars even possible as a long term solution? This "Mars colonization" strategy seems like a pipe dream, no?
- SJC_Hacker 1y agoTectonics isn’t the issue There would be little point in terraforming Mars. There’s plenty of places on Earth to terraform
- 1y ago
- xnx 1y agoEven in the Goldilocks zone a planet still need so many specific things going for it to be the paradise Earth is. Anthropic principle strikes again!
- wewewedxfgdf 1y agoThe Moon, gently stirring and moving the inner core like oatmeal.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- sebmellen 1y agoYummy. Mind the heat!
- madaxe_again 1y agoAnd keeping the axis of rotation consistent - and keeping the day length short and consistent.
- euroderf 1y agoOh but that's not even the best part. The rare total solar eclipse - those two sky-objects are so similar in size! - motivates (terrified) ancient man to observe, record, theorise, mathematise.
- bell-cot 1y agoI don't see any mention of the Theia Impact theory - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-impact_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-impact_hypothesis - of the Earth/Moon system's formation. Whether or not Theia was the cause - having a fast-spinning Earth and huge satellite in a low orbit* make Earth's situation profoundly different from that of Venus. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon#System_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon#System_evolution for starters
- wewewedxfgdf 1y agoWatch this magnificent documentary about the mystery of the surface of Venus. Still a favorite after 30 years. https://archive.org/details/NOVA_VenusUnveiled https://archive.org/details/NOVA_VenusUnveiled
- FridayoLeary 1y agoOne odd theory i heard is that Earth is actually one giant superorganism. (When you look at how well all the ecosystems internact with each other it kind of makes sense). Like any organism, when invaded by a virus it heats up in a fever in order to kill it...
- fifilura 1y agoDoing things in a chaotic way will increase entropy. Increased entropy is heat.
- duxup 1y agoRussian missions to Venus IMO are some of the coolest missions. That's some brave stuff to try to pull off.
- gorfian_robot 1y agocan you apply 'brave' to unmanned missions? challenging, yes.
- iisan7 1y agoI think it's still brave to attempt a mission with significant chance of failure that risks resources, careers, and reputation. And had it been a _manned_ mission to Venus, the adjective that comes to mind is not brave but pointless, foolish, or sadistic.
- booleandilemma 1y agoApple applied "courage" to removing the headphone jack.
- uncircle 1y agoEconomically brave. Imagine building the most advanced and expensive piece of technology your society ever created, with small margins of success and the knowledge it'll last less than an hour before imploding upon itself. And then trying again 16 times. (I've just learned there are plans to try one more time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera-17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera-17)
- duxup 1y agoTaking a risk on a project that takes many years with a good chance of total failure can be brave. Many people are risk averse and would find the total failure of many years of work at the very least very disappointing.
- BeetleB 1y ago> Russian missions to Venus IMO are some of the coolest missions. Well, they become some of the hottest missions pretty quickly!
- azeemba 1y agoThe funny thing is that an oxygen-rich environment is a hell-hole! Oxygen is insanely reactive and will corrode anything. Even early life on earth found oxygen toxic. It was released as a waste product by early life and they were so successful that all that oxygen accumulated resulting in the Great Oxidation Event (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event). That likely resulted in many species going extinct!
- eru 1y agoYes, first everything rusted, and then the excess oxygen collected in the atmosphere. Many of our iron ore deposits we still mine today are from that rusting. (That iron used to be mostly dissolved in the oceans.)
- dredmorbius 1y agoAnd the concentration into BIFs, banded iron formations, was all but certainly the result of biological activity. Our present technology based on iron and steel owes itself to early life on Earth, from 1.6 to as much as 4 billion years ago. As with petroleum and coal-bed formation, a process unlikely to repeat in Earth's future. Iron ores are abundant, but still a finite resource. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banded_iron_formation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banded_iron_formation>
- meindnoch 1y ago>Iron ores are abundant, but still a finite resource. The iron doesn't go anywhere (ok, except for the iron making up our space probes). It is infinitely recyclable.
- dredmorbius 1y agoIt doesn't concentrate itself, at scale. That's what ores are. Ores are useful because they are concentrated, the result of some ore-formation or ore genesis process. The "not going anywhere", after it's been dispersed throughout the lithosphere, is precisely the problem. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ore_genesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ore_genesis>
- derbOac 1y agoI guess we need to start colonizing other worlds then.
- nenenejej 1y agoWe need to yes. Maybe the tech can help us with the required geohacks here.
- jrflowers 1y agoIt’s because there’s no Arby’s on Venus. If we put an Arby’s up there it would start looking a lot better
- gorfian_robot 1y agogood point
- rdtsc 1y ago> For a time, the mantle would get hotter, since the shell around it would trap heat generated by radioactively decaying compounds inside it. As heat accumulates in the interior, the Earth in Kane’s simulations would experience an uptick in volcanism lasting for about 15 million years. That totally surprised to me. I had no idea radioactive decay played such a role for earth. It turns out I must have fallen sleep in one of the classes when that was explained. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_internal_heat_budget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_internal_heat_budget > The radioactive decay of elements in the Earth's mantle and crust results in production of daughter isotopes and release of geoneutrinos and heat energy, or radiogenic heat. About 50% of the Earth's internal heat originates from radioactive decay
- gsf_emergency_2 1y agoDually: geothermal energy installations (& volcanism) release much more than simply energy into the biosphere https://www.ntanet.net/hot-rocks-radioactive-waste-radon-from-geothermal-energy/ https://www.ntanet.net/hot-rocks-radioactive-waste-radon-fro... You are welcome to consider that as a matter of hormesis and resources, of course
- MathMonkeyMan 1y agoThe only context in which I heard it mentioned is the idea of trying to date the earth by its temperature. Assume it was a hot molten mess in the past and has been cooling down ever since. Factor in the rate at which it would radiate heat and all of the energy coming from the sun and... you conclude that the planet is very young. Because you didn't account for radioactive material within the planet, keeping it warm.
- dredmorbius 1y agoThermal decay dating was also used to estimate the age of the Sun, most famously / notoriously by William Thompson, a/k/a Lord Kelvin. Without knowledge of radioactivity, nuclear chemistry, or nuclear fusion, Thompson presumed latent heat of gravitational collapse for both the Earth and Sun, and came up with an age of "a moderate number of millions of years" for the former, and no more than 500 million years for the Sun. Rutherford's discovery of the atomic nucleus, and subsequent discoveries of radioactive decay (providing both mechanism and clock for Earth's heat and age) and fusion and helium (the Sun's thermodynamic equation and age) provided a refutation of Thompson's estimates, empirical basis for the current age estimates of the Earth and Sun (about 4.5 billion years), and ultimately of a lifespan for the Sun (about 10--12 billion years) as well as how long habitable conditions on Earth may persist (as little as another 800 million years for some conditions, another 2--3 billion on the outside). <https://www.teachastronomy.com/textbook/Our-Sun-The-Nearest-Star/Kelvin-and-the-Suns-Age/ https://www.teachastronomy.com/textbook/Our-Sun-The-Nearest-...> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Kelvin#Age_of_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Kelvin#Age_of_Earth> citing Burchfield, Joe D. (1990). Lord Kelvin and the Age of the Earth. University of Chicago Press. p. 43. ISBN 978-0-226-08043-7. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-226-08043-7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-226-...>
- curtisszmania 1y ago[dead]
- themafia 1y ago> Why Is Venus Hell and Earth an Eden? Because humans evolved on Earth and not on Venus. If we evolved on Venus then it would be our Eden. > They’ve been pushing their model Earth to its extremes Is your model anywhere good enough to be able to get useful outcomes from this process? I would suspect not. I mean, we know this planet's state is partially owed to the many unique comet impacts that have occurred during it's life, are you modelling those?
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> If we evolved on Venus then it would be our Eden I don't think we can just anthropic principle this one away. We couldn't have evolved on Venus. It's valid to ask whether any complex life could. > Is your model anywhere good enough to be able to get useful outcomes from this process? I would suspect not Got it, reflexive blanket dismissal comment.
- themafia 1y ago> It's valid to ask whether any complex life could. That's obviously the point I was making. > Got it, reflexive blanket dismissal comment. No, I said my _suspicion_ is that you cannot, and you're being a hypocrite.
- jibal 1y ago> That's obviously the point I was making. No, it obviously wasn't.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> That's obviously the point I was making It obviously isn't given you followed up with "if we evolved on Venus." > I said my _suspicion_ is that you cannot Which you followed up by dismissing the work for suspecting it did not consider [insert random armchair complication]. > you're being a hypocrite Nope. I actually read and thought about your comment, initially in good faith.
- rramadass 1y agoThis is a good time to point people to one of the best PBS TV series about "Our Planet Earth" (unrelated to BBC series of the same name) aired in 1986 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_Earth_(1986_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_Earth_(1986_TV_series) Episodes on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=planet+earth+pbs+1986 https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=planet+earth+pb... Everybody needs to watch this to understand how exquisitely balanced our planet is.
- rbanffy 1y agoAt these time scales, major terraforming projects become viable, from building large sunshades in orbit to one near Earth-Sun L1 (balancing light pressure and gravity, it would be closer to the Sun than L1), to even raising Earth’s orbit through a fleet of gravity tugs. Venus would be an excellent case for a planet-sized sunshade, btw, as well as a solar wind magnetic lens to replace lost hydrogen and make liquid water as the planet cools. The latter could be useful for Mars.
- Davidzheng 1y agoBeauty is in the eye of the beholder.
- rkagerer 1y agoVenus is arguably the worst place in the solar system From another perspective, its atmosphere is "one of the most Earth-like in the solar system", and scientists long ago postulated the idea of establishing floating cloud cities. Big balloons filled with nitrogen and oxygen would naturally settle at the right altitude, 30 miles above the surface, where gravity, ambient pressure, and radiation aren't far off that of Earth, and temperature hovers around a balmy 86°F. Since the pressure inside and outside is matched, punctures wouldn't cause explosive decompression, providing time to repair damage or leaks. You wouldn't need a bulky pressure suit to venture outside, just some comparatively simple breathing apparatus, and of course protection from the nasty sulfuric acid in the atmosphere (akin to acid rain). The habs would be coated in Teflon to resist it. More about this crazy idea here: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20161019-the-amazing-cloud-cities-we-could-build-on-venus https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20161019-the-amazing-clou...
- NoMoreNicksLeft 1y agoHow do you deorbit Venus is such a way that your inflatable balloon city comes to a gentle stop, 30 miles up, and just floats there? Worse still, when people need to leave and return to Earth, how do you launch a rocket from the balloon city and return to orbit? How do visitors or pioneers deorbit and land at the floating city? If there aren't materials to effect a repair, how long until it sinks down into the hellzone? Where are materials manufactured for repairs, and how quickly could they be manufactured and sent there? If a rocket is trying to land and goes off course, does it squash the balloon city like a grape? Saying that holes can be patched is well and good, but there are some truly catastrophic failure modes that don't seem entirely unlikely.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> such a way that your inflatable balloon city comes to a gentle stop, 30 miles up, and just floats there? Literally how floating works. > Worse still, when people need to leave and return to Earth, how do you launch a rocket from the balloon city and return to orbit? By launching your rocket from the ballon city and returning to orbit. (I'm struggling to see the novel problem.) > Where are materials manufactured for repairs, and how quickly could they be manufactured and sent there? Why is this unique to Venus versus anywhere else in space? > If a rocket is trying to land and goes off course, does it squash the balloon city like a grape? Yes. Same as if your rocket is trying to land at your Moon or Mars base (or hell, your Earth landing pad) and goes off course, it squashes your colony like a crouton.
- Peteragain 1y agoI can't believe people haven't read James Lovelock's works re the Gaia hypothesis. The feedback loop is that plants produce an oxygen rich atmosphere right up to the point where lightning strikes would start fires that kill off enough plant life, reducing the oxygen in the atmosphere. Send plants to Venus now and in 500 billion years we can move there.
- tomaskafka 1y agoI struggle to find plants that can survive and do photosynthesis in temperatures of molten tin and sulphuric acid rain though
- tim333 1y agoI've heard of if but am put off by the flaws as suggested in the wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis#Criticism_in_the_21st_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis#Criticism_in_t... I liked the nyt microbes in the crust article https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/24/magazine/earth-geomicrobiology-microbes.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/24/magazine/earth-geomicrobi... along those lines.
- booleandilemma 1y agoIsn't the answer just: we grew up (evolved) on Earth, so from our perspective it's an Eden? Everyone's home planet must seem like an Eden to them, right? Trisolarans notwithstanding.
- optimalsolver 1y agoStill disappointed it's not a swamp as promised by 20th century science fiction.
- ByteDrifter 1y agoEarth's internal heat regulation is such an underrated hero in the climate story. Half of Earth’s heat comes from internal sources, constantly driving plate tectonics and helping regulate CO₂. Venus lacks that it’s like a pressure cooker with no release valve.
- DarkNova6 1y agoHow does Earth's internal heat regulate CO2?
- dredmorbius 1y agoTectonic and volcanic activity release CO2 into the atmosphere. They comprise a major part of Earth's carbon cycle. Over time, carbon would be depleted from the outer lithosphere without this replenishment, and one of the mechanisms by which the Earth ultimately becomes unsuitable for life is a slowing of the tectonic cycle and depletion of said carbon. This point is addressed (briefly) in TFA: If or when Earth’s large-scale subduction shuts off in about 3.5 billion years, kneecapping the planet’s ability to bury carbon... See also: "Evolution of Earth’s tectonic carbon conveyor belt" (2022) Concealed deep beneath the oceans is a carbon conveyor belt, propelled by plate tectonics. Our understanding of its modern functioning is underpinned by direct observations, but its variability through time has been poorly quantified. Here we reconstruct oceanic plate carbon reservoirs and track the fate of subducted carbon using thermodynamic modelling.... <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04420-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04420-x> "How plate tectonics has maintained Earth's 'Goldilocks' climate" (26 May 2022) (Popular article based on the same research.) "Timeline of the Far Future" See "The Sun's increasing luminosity begins to disrupt the carbonate–silicate cycle..." ~500 to 600 my. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future> This is somewhat speculative, and the precise nature / timing of carbon collapse may differ. But what strikes me is that the various pathways by which Earth exits its Goldilocks state are numerous and comparatively soon on a geological timescale. We're far nearer the evening of Earth's day than its morning, by multiple such measures.
- SwtCyber 1y ago
- roschdal 1y agoEarth is hell also...
- johncoltrane 1y agoBecause we are built for Earth. Next question.
- mintaka5 1y ago[dead]
- Symmetry 1y agoIt's interesting that this article places the boiling of Earth's oceans much further in the future than Wikipedia's Timeline of Earth's Future. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future
- simpaticoder 1y agoI've always wondered about the feasibility of adding a reflective solar shield between Venus and Sol to cut the feedback loop that keeps surface temps so high, eventually reducing cloud cover and revealing what lies beneath. In addition, such a project might be good practice in case we ever needed a modified version for Earth, and may even be useful to add energy to celestial bodies (e.g. heat up the dark side of an asteroid by placing it at the focus of a large parabolic mirror). Venus having an atmosphere and having almost the same mass as Earth has always made it, not Mars, my favorite target for terraforming and colonization.
- mystraline 1y agoSo... We know the composition of the atmosphere. We know the temp bands going down to the surface. We know the pressure bands going down to the surface. So, have we started to brainstorm of how to spray a whole host of bacteria and viruses, including sulphur eaters, extremeophiles, and genetically modified organisms, and use satellites to launch into the atmosphere? Sure, it would be humanity's first planetary geoengineering endevour but its not like it'll get worse than 61 MPA and 600c And the cost of a few space vehicles is what? Wouldn't be THAT expensive. And we'd learn a bunch. Hmm, maybe China would be interested. Opening up new earth-sized landmasses would be incalculable gains for humanity.
- haunter 1y agoBecause God created that way? Duh what kind of question is this /s
- SwtCyber 1y agoWhat stuck out to me is how fragile Earth's long-term stability actually is. We've gotten insanely lucky with things like plate tectonics, subduction, and just the right volcanic activity to keep CO2 cycling.
- dredmorbius 1y agoAnd over sufficiently long terms, the Earth's not been all that stable. There've been multiple Snowball Earths (based on geological evidence), and a few episodes in which (even had land-based life existed) the continents were barely habitable. Even today large expanses (Antarctica, the Sahara and other deserts) are only barely habitable. Still Edens compared with the rest of the Solar System.
- jenkinomics 1y agoGive it another few hundred million years.