Of course, Venus as it is today has its share of challenges that make the prospect of living there very difficult! These make terraforming not only a good idea but a potential necessity, assuming people want to live there in large numbers. Otherwise, they will need to be happy living in floating cities among the clouds an actual possibility!
The atmosphere is also a toxic fume, composed overwhelmingly of carbon dioxide with trace amounts of nitrogen, sulfur dioxide, and water vapor. However, unlike Mars, atmospheric pressure on Venus is a whopping kPa - that's 90 times the pressure of Earth's atmosphere. To experience that kind of pressure here on Earth , a person would have to venture over 3, feet meters under the sea. So unless you have a vehicle that can withstand extreme heat and pressure, you're not getting anywhere near the surface.
As if that weren't enough, Venus' atmosphere is also permeated by clouds of sulfuric acid rain. These have been observed in Venus' upper atmosphere and may not condense closer to the surface. But spacecraft attempting to land on the surface must first penetrate this acidic shroud.
Venus also has the slowest rotation period of any major planet, taking roughly Earth days to rotate once on its axis. On top of that, Venus rotates in the opposite direction as the Sun retrograde rotation , which is something astronomers have only ever observed with one other planet Uranus.
Between its slow retrograde rotation and the fact that Venus takes close to days to orbit the Sun, a single "solar day" on Venus lasts This means that for an observer on the surface of Venus, it takes close to four months for the Sun to set and rise again compared to 24 hours here on Earth.
Venus is also isothermal, which means that it experiences virtually no variation in temperature. Earth's If you're thinking that this is starting to sound like something out of Dante's Inferno, then you're on the right track!
But with the right kind of work, it could be made into something more akin to a tropical island paradise. Luckily, with the right kind of ecological techniques and some serious elbow grease, Venus could be terraformed into an ocean planet with mild temperatures and endless beachfront property. As with Mars, it comes down to three major goals. They include:. Much like terraforming Mars, these three goals are complementary, even if they are the complete opposite. Luckily for us, Venus has a lot to work with, and the outcome would be easier for humans to adapt to.
The first proposed method was made by none other than Carl Sagan in in a paper titled " The Planet Venus. It was in this paper that Sagan argued that seeding the atmosphere of Venus with genetically engineered cyanobacteria could gradually convert the atmospheric carbon dioxide to organic molecules.
Unfortunately, the subsequent discovery of sulfuric acid clouds and the effects of solar wind made this proposal impractical. It would be another thirty years before another proposal for terraforming Venus was made, which was done by British Paul Birch in his paper " Terraforming Venus Quickly. This proposal reminded many scientists of what Venus was thought to be like before the Space Age — that its dense canopy was once thought to be made up of rainclouds. Another idea was to flood Venus' atmosphere with refined magnesium and calcium, put forward by planetary physicist Mark Bullock and astrobiologist David H.
In a paper titled " The stability of climate on Venus ," they ventured that this would sequester carbon dioxide in the form of calcium and magnesium carbonates.
Another proposal is to use solar shades, something that was recommended by Birch and famed aerospace engineer and space exploration advocate Robert Zubrin. This concept would involve using a series of small reflective spacecraft in Venus' atmosphere to divert sunlight, thereby reducing global temperatures.
Alternately, a single large shade could be positioned at the Sun-Venus L1 Lagrangian point to limit the amount of sunlight reaching Venus. This shade would also block solar wind, preventing Venus' atmosphere from being stripped and also shielding the planet from solar radiation.
At this altitude, temperatures would be tolerable for human beings, and the atmospheric density would allow the cities to remain afloat. These cities could act as solar shields and processing stations while providing initial living space for colonists. Over time, as Venus' atmosphere grew less dense, the cities would migrate to the surface and become part of the landscape.
Another suggestion is to speed up Venus' rotation , which could have the added benefit of generating a planetary magnetic field. There are a number of ways to do this, like striking Venus' surface with large asteroids or using mass drivers or dynamic compression members to impart transfer energy and momentum to the surface. This would allow for the creation of an Earth-like diurnal cycle and could also help remove some of Venus' dense atmosphere.
Similarly, mass drivers or space elevators could scoop clouds from Venus' atmosphere and eject them into space, gradually thinning it out over time. The end result of this would be a Venus very much like its former self. This would mean a planet covered predominantly by oceans.
Due to the nature of Venus' geological features and small variations in elevation, the surface would essentially be a giant archipelago with a few larger continents. One of these would be Ishtar Terra, a continent in the Northern Hemisphere roughly between Australi and the continental United States in size. It is here that the highest point on Venus, Maxwell Montes indicated in white , is located. This behemoth mountain stands 36, ft 11, m tall — taller than Mt.
Everest 29, ft; 8, m — and measures almost mi km in diameter. Another major landmass is Aphrodite Terra, which is located along the equator and is about four times the size of Ishtar Terra.
A third landmass, Lady Terra, is slightly smaller than Aphrodite Terra. Think of the Caribbean, Polynesia, and the Greek Isles, but on a planet-wide level! Like most proposed terraforming ventures, many obstacles need to be addressed beforehand.
Foremost among these are transportation and logistics, mobilizing a massive fleet of robot workers and hauling craft to harness the necessary resources.
After that, a multi-generational commitment would need to be made, providing financial resources to see the job through to completion. Not an easy task under the most ideal of conditions. Suffice it to say, this is something that humanity cannot do in the short-run. The only question is, how long will we have to wait? We have written many interesting articles about terraforming here at Universe Today.
And if you liked the video posted above, come check out our Patreon page and find out how you can get these videos early while helping us bring you more great content! Podcast audio : Download Duration: — 3. Podcast video : Download Floating sky cities maybe.. Were we to figure out a way to easily break down that molecule to create an oxygen rich atmosphere and somehow blow off, collect or sequester the carbon, then maybe?
BUT, it is possible that Venus is constantly producing CO2 via volcanic activity and therefor replenishing that greenhouse gas at far too high a rate to compensate for?
Drop a world ocean Europe, Ganymede on it, come back in a few million years after the newly molten crust hardens.
Earth itself has been livable for us only during a short period of time. Life started here with conditions which we cannot survive. Any living planet will have its own unique evolutionary path of life, atmosphere and geology. It is not enough to make a planet habitable, we have to make it a copy of present Earth in order to live there.
Those combined would make it impossible for any large structure to survive, not to mention the sulfuric acid. We just make controlling the winds part of the project. But that does not mean it takes days for the Sun to return to the same place in the sky. It takes Venus Earth days to complete one revolution, but there are Earth days of sunlight.
The article seems to imply that carbon dioxide is responsible for the hellish conditions on Venus — and that the Earth is next due to evil Republicans. Venus is so hot because, with days of sunlight, the surface of Venus heats up and carbon dioxide outgases from the surface. Also, Venus is closer to the Sun, and that would make Venus hot. The far side of Venus is also dark for the same period of time, and therefore should radiate enough heat to balance out the temperature.
Mercury is closer to the Sun, but temps drop sharply on the dark side due to a lack of a significant atmosphere. The atmosphere absorbs the heat and does not let it dissipate quickly enough, so the runaway greenhouse effect is indeed a reality, despite what some politicians choose to believe. I think the simplest way to get rid of the CO2 would be a little creative bioengineering. Bioengineering, and make it excrete pure carbon in some dark inertish form such as buckytubes or graphite.
The flakes of graphite would sink, raising the oxygen content in the atmosphere, and making the planet darker. You may then get large chemical convective storms as 2. This would fetch heat from the surface to be radiated out into space. Lynxworx A very similar suggestion was published in Popular Science about 55 years ago , as I recall… maybe April or May issue. The author at that time suggested seeding the upper atmosphere with a hardy strain of bluegreen algae which would feed on the CO2 and sunlight in the cooler atmosphere, releasing oxygen and shading the surface as it spread.
Eventually the older algae would grow heavier and sink, burning up and dropping carbon residue. At some point, the author figured, it would be cool enough for rains to start and further clear the atmosphere and cool the surface. I remember reading this when I was about 10 years old and thought that it was such a great idea that it has stuck with me ever since.
Thought it would be a good sci-fi story to have someone find a way to secretly stash a container on a Venus bound probe and release it high in the atmosphere. He made this very same suggestion, using genetically-modified algae to convert the CO2 into graphite and water. Sun screen, lots of sun screen… No really. All we have to do is wait several hundred million years or so..
Consider that even more brisk Solar Wind and Flux have been doing the same thing to Venus as with Mars, that is, without a magnetic field, stripping off the atmosphere for billions of years. The first funds for this project should go to pulling Gary Larson out of retirement to create a series of Venusian Farsides. Iceland has such interactions. I would think that the dry ice would win but there would be many regions where the venu-thermal heat creates geysers — all kinds of outgassing.
Too messy. It may not work as planned but it would be very cool looking for Earth observers! Another approach would be to declare CO2, plus energy, our friend. Rather than freeze out CO2, why not use a likely common element in the Venusian crust — Silicon to produce a completely stable and disposable compound — Silicon Carbide. This would leave Oxygen that would be attractive to Earthlings but also generate some oxidative processes on the surface that would be interesting in the least.
Next consider finishing what nature has not — despinning the planet. First, fix a single humongous propulsion system on the surface that would: 1 despin the planet, 2 propel Venus into an orbit at superior conjunction to the Earth the opposite side of the Sun , 3 while doing all this thrusting, expel some amount of the CO2 atmosphere off the planet by way of the incredible thrust plume.
With that much propulsive energy at your disposal, you could choose to spin up the planet when ready. So what does one get after all this trouble? Take Lake Erie. Dry it out and propose putting track homes on its dry lake bed. More unique ideas call for seeding the atmosphere with chemicals that would change its make-up, reducing the thickness.
A prime candidate is hydrogen, reacting with the carbon dioxide to form water. Seeding sulfur dioxide could also cool Venus down some, according to Nobel prize-winner Paul Crutzen. Meanwhile, humans can chill in floating balloon cities, made of reflective surfaces, that would serve as settlements while the terraforming is going on.
Overall, the benefits of terraforming Venus are clear. Getting to this point, though, is the challenge. Care about supporting clean energy adoption? Find out how much money and planet! By signing up through this link , Futurism. A New Home A growing number of scientists and astronomers are looking at the very real possibility of building colonies and settlements on other planets.
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