Another non-story about Venus
Venus as seen in ultraviolet by Mariner 10,
February 5, 1974. The identity of the material
that causes the dark streaks still remains unknown.
The uncertainty of science: In the next few days you might see a few news articles in the mainstream press touting a new study that “Now for the first time!” explains why there is no water on Venus.
Be warned. You are reading bad reporting of relatively insignificant research that some specialists studying Venus might find of interest but for everyone else is hardly news. Prior to the internet age most science reporters would have read the press release and tossed it aside. And if they tried to sell it as a story their editors would have quickly told them to find something better to write about.
How do I know this? The press release‘s title gives it away: “Venus has almost no water. A new study may reveal why.”
First, any press release that uses qualifiers like “may” or “could” or “might” guarantees a finding of less interest. Almost invariably such “discoveries” are nothing more that a new computer simulation or model that shows interesting output, but has nothing to do with new observations of actual data. In essence, this is garbage in, garbage out. The computer models might help explain things, but no one should take the results that seriously. Good scientists (of which there appear to be fewer and fewer) never do. Good journalists should do the same.
In this case that is exactly what we have. To quote:
In the current study, the researchers used computer models to understand Venus as a gigantic chemistry laboratory, zooming in on the diverse reactions that occur in the planet’s swirling atmosphere.
Since our map of Venus’s atmosphere is presently very incomplete and understood even less, such models cannot be relied upon with any confidence. For example, the identity some of the most basic molecules in that atmosphere, though obvious in spectroscopy and in some wavelengths for more than a half century, still remain completely unknown.
Consider this as well: none of the models created by climate scientists attempting to predict Earth’s future global temperature have been capable of doing it, even though we live on the planet. We should certainly take a similar model of Venus with far greater skepticism.
The press release also makes believe that Venus’s lack of water is because the planet once had a lot and that water was driven away somehow. That is a false assumption. Right now all we know is that Venus has almost no water. Whether it once had water and lost it, or never had it at all, is really the fundamental question that needs to be answered.
In other words, before we can really figure out how Venus lost water, we really need a better understanding of its entire geological and climate history. Only then can we ask the right questions about that past.
To make sure my meaning is clear, I am not criticizing this particular research. I am instead trying to give my readers some useful tools for separating the wheat from the chaff.
It will take a lot of work to disentangle the complexity of Venus’s climate and environment, no less decipher its entire geological history. This particular research does aid in this work, though it is also very very premature. Planetary geologists who specialize in studying Venus will read it, go “Hmm!” without much excitement, and then quickly move on.
Reporters should do far less. If they don’t, they are doing a disservice to the public.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Venus as seen in ultraviolet by Mariner 10,
February 5, 1974. The identity of the material
that causes the dark streaks still remains unknown.
The uncertainty of science: In the next few days you might see a few news articles in the mainstream press touting a new study that “Now for the first time!” explains why there is no water on Venus.
Be warned. You are reading bad reporting of relatively insignificant research that some specialists studying Venus might find of interest but for everyone else is hardly news. Prior to the internet age most science reporters would have read the press release and tossed it aside. And if they tried to sell it as a story their editors would have quickly told them to find something better to write about.
How do I know this? The press release‘s title gives it away: “Venus has almost no water. A new study may reveal why.”
First, any press release that uses qualifiers like “may” or “could” or “might” guarantees a finding of less interest. Almost invariably such “discoveries” are nothing more that a new computer simulation or model that shows interesting output, but has nothing to do with new observations of actual data. In essence, this is garbage in, garbage out. The computer models might help explain things, but no one should take the results that seriously. Good scientists (of which there appear to be fewer and fewer) never do. Good journalists should do the same.
In this case that is exactly what we have. To quote:
In the current study, the researchers used computer models to understand Venus as a gigantic chemistry laboratory, zooming in on the diverse reactions that occur in the planet’s swirling atmosphere.
Since our map of Venus’s atmosphere is presently very incomplete and understood even less, such models cannot be relied upon with any confidence. For example, the identity some of the most basic molecules in that atmosphere, though obvious in spectroscopy and in some wavelengths for more than a half century, still remain completely unknown.
Consider this as well: none of the models created by climate scientists attempting to predict Earth’s future global temperature have been capable of doing it, even though we live on the planet. We should certainly take a similar model of Venus with far greater skepticism.
The press release also makes believe that Venus’s lack of water is because the planet once had a lot and that water was driven away somehow. That is a false assumption. Right now all we know is that Venus has almost no water. Whether it once had water and lost it, or never had it at all, is really the fundamental question that needs to be answered.
In other words, before we can really figure out how Venus lost water, we really need a better understanding of its entire geological and climate history. Only then can we ask the right questions about that past.
To make sure my meaning is clear, I am not criticizing this particular research. I am instead trying to give my readers some useful tools for separating the wheat from the chaff.
It will take a lot of work to disentangle the complexity of Venus’s climate and environment, no less decipher its entire geological history. This particular research does aid in this work, though it is also very very premature. Planetary geologists who specialize in studying Venus will read it, go “Hmm!” without much excitement, and then quickly move on.
Reporters should do far less. If they don’t, they are doing a disservice to the public.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Some probes have already measured Venus’ hydrogen, what’s left of it. What’s left is heavier deuterium. On the assumption that H:D ratio started similar at 0.7 AU as here at 1 AU or on Mars 1.6 AU, Venus has lost hydrogen so had much more of it, earlier.
Anyway I’m 100% with you that we should be sending more probes at our sister planet. Floating cities, too.
Most of Venus atmosphere is too windy for floating cities, except at the calm, windless polar areas which are also cooler. At one bar of atmosphere it is a pleasant 70°F. (with 32 bars of atmosphere, it gets hotter and thicker the further down you go)
The CO2 Atmosphere will provide all the carbon and oxygen a city will need… The hydrogen to make water can be captured from the solar wind using a strong magnetic field to attract charged particles.
The sun is a ball of hydrogen gas and nearly every element in the solar wind has a hydrogen atom attached to it.
A space elevator may not be practical, but it would not need to touch the surface of the slowly rotating backwards planet… Just attach the end to a high altitude platform/airfield. Above the crazy winds, you can choose the direction and speed of the orbit to make it viable. Access to space will determine its success.
A conductor dropping deep in the atmosphere could collect a lot of ions, or take advantage of the Thermal Cupler effect that will produce endless energy for the colony. At least in theory.
Eventually they’ll be terraforming options using anaerobic bacteria which was responsible for changing our carbon dioxide atmosphere into oxygen. (The production of methane as a lifting gas/rocket fuel can be produced abundantly from the carbon without importing from earth)
Free oxygen in the upper atmosphere is a magnet for the solar hydrogen gases which forms water. In a few million years, Venus could become a Waterworld with a thick layer of calcium carbonate covering the surface like earth once was before a Mars sized object (the moon) collided with the earth. (The moons 2 miles deep missing mass is approximately the same mass as the continents floating above the 2000 foot calcium carbonate layer which forms oil as continental drift slides across it)
This is also why lunar isotopes are identical to the earths.
CO2 in the upper atmosphere of Venus are broken apart by UV rays making some carbon compounds and free oxygen which when mixed with a solar wind forming other isotopes like carbon monoxide, water, hydrocarbons, nitric acid etc. but ultimately it will resume the most stable form which I guess is CO2 because of its abundance. The presence of humans, Black smoker vent bacteria and their technology could upset this balance.
The current lack of chemical transformation from abundant UV radiation is probably due to the extreme cold nature of Venus upper atmosphere where carbon dioxide freezes into “dry ice” making Venus so reflective.
Who would ever thought that the fifth hottest planet in the solar system (surface) could be so cold… Colder than anywhere on earth.
What about building rings around Venus, and building strips of land on those rings? Late Paul Birch did some writings about that. Over time, you could cove all of Venus with land.
Venus has no moon to mine the raw materials to make rings or the source for soil. Engineering the ring to spin fast enough for microgravity is another problem. Capturing or redirecting a comet is not technically possible yet. Out of all the planets, Venus is least likely for this venture.
Far better to farm the moon and mercury which have plentiful resources. Mars perhaps, with enough available energy…
Venus is unlikely to be usable for anything but a way to slow down craft heading for mercury… and a test bed for cloud cities for Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
But then if I turn off my brain, I can fantasize of mercury, which is very dense but low gravity, having enough Metal and energy resources to build habitats for the solar system… large self replicating robots creating manufacturing marvels, structures under human direction for future human colonization. Massive rotating space stations to orbit around every major planet providing a base for support and replenishing the supplies for science and exploration throughout the solar system.
Possibly a forerunner of a generation ship.
The press release is further proof that headline writing is dead.