The death of Venus

andre

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A nice crackpot title isn't it? I'm talking about the Planet, not the Goddess of course. My objective is to propose / disclose how and why Venus died.

Lets first have a closer look at the Planet:

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/features/planets/venus/venus.html

The atmosphere consists mainly of carbon dioxide (the same gas that produces fizzy sodas), droplets of sulfuric acid, and virtually no water vapor - not a great place for people or plants! In addition, the thick atmosphere allows the Sun's heat in but does not allow it to escape, resulting in surface temperatures over 450 °C, hotter than the surface of the planet Mercury, which is closest to the Sun. The high density of the atmosphere results in a surface pressure 90 times that of Earth, which is why probes that have landed on Venus have only survived several hours before being crushed by the incredible pressure. In the upper layers, the clouds move faster than hurricane- force winds on Earth.

Venus sluggishly rotates on its axis once every 243 Earth days, while it orbits the Sun every 225 days - its day is longer than its year! Besides that, Venus rotates retrograde, or "backwards," spinning in the opposite direction of its orbit around the Sun. From its surface, the Sun would seem to rise in the west and set in the east.

Earth and Venus are similar in density and chemical compositions, and both have relatively young surfaces, with Venus appearing to have been completely resurfaced 300 to 500 million years ago.

The surface of Venus is covered by about 20 percent lowland plains, 70 percent rolling uplands, and 10 percent highlands. Volcanism, impacts, and deformation of the crust have shaped the surface. No direct evidence of currently active volcanoes has been found,..
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Emphasis added.

My hypothesis (both for Earth and Venus) covers the four main features, as highlighted in the quote, the high temperature, the dense carbon dioxide atmosphere, the sluggish rotation and the (almost) complete resurfacing in a short period can all be explained by the same mechanism or event and that's not runaway wet greenhouse gas effect.

Any comments or questions so far?
 
1) what is your hypothesis?

2) what has the green house effect (an all to do with the atmosphere) got to do with a planets rotation?
 
Well, a planet suffering from the greenhouse effect must have many, many evil capitalist facotories on it producing all those evil greenhouse gases, since that is what causes the greenhouse effect!

What do you mean there are no factories, not even capitalist ones, on Venus?:p
 
andre said:
Okay, moving slowly for others to catch up. My pace is usually killing as I hear frequently. It killed Venus.


The biggest puzzle of Venus seems to be its sluggish retrograde rotation. It is subject of much study. Here is a study attempting to explain but there still remain problems:

http://astro.oal.ul.pt/~acorreia/cvpubs/venus1.pdf
http://astro.oal.ul.pt/~acorreia/cvpubs/venus2.pdf

BTW all those greenhouse gas factories could not slow the planet down could they?
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What say you cut the preamble and tell us your theory yes?
 
[sarcasm]

Please! Tell us! The suspense is killing me, I'm on the edge of my seat! Wait, no, that's just my hemorrhoid.

[/sarcasm]
 
BillHoyt said:


I created it. It is my theory, and the theory that belongs to me...
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And the conclusion you want us to draw from all of this is, please?

Or did you think we were playing Jeopardy here?
 
I see the murderer is already lynched before the crime was committed :D

I hope you had an enjoyable lynch time.
 
andre said:
I see the murderer is already lynched before the crime was committed :D

I hope you had an enjoyable lynch time.
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Your delivery was that of someone with an agenda. I just want you to get to the point without any preamble. I'm not into forum foreplay.
 
Are you thinking asteroid impact? That seems like it might explain all four of your emphasized points.
 
andre said:
Ok it might help to read a bit of this. That would clarify.

http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=29502&pagenumber=4
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I read some of that, but stopped when my eyes began to glaze over. Speaking of this thread, are you saying that venus used to have life until something happened or are you simply saying that something interesting happened to Venus and we could use that as a model to explain some changes on Earth?
 
No Cecil I'm thinking of a giant internal brake.

Dragonrock
If you want the story now, immediately, can't wait. I posted the whole story on two other forums. I can link if you like. The idea was just to discuss every step and have a complete thread here as well.

Perhaps, but speculating, Venus was more like Earth in the past, with a normal turning rate and a "normal atmosphere" whatever that is, with water. At least this is the starting point where the runaway wet green house hypothesis starts, with boiling oceans.
 
The Book "Venus Revealed" by David Grinspoon discusses this. I believe many of Venus' features are explained by its abnormally thick crust. Pressure builds underneath it, and then once every billion years or so it undergoes catastrophic resurfacing. But I read it years ago, so I may be misremembering. I do recall it being a very good book though, and I recommend it.
 
andre

Okay, I'm with you now. I'm sorry, I did not understand where you were going and the whole building up to a grand climax thing has always seemed rather preachy to me. I will sit back and quietly read from here on.
 
jj said:


Ok, where's the reaction go?
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Obviously, the core of Venus is spinning really really fast. If the bearings ever sieze up, the angular momentum will be distributed evenly, and the planet will then rotate once every 18 hours.

Shall I tell you my Planet X theory too? No... I'll save it up for later.
 
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