Warning: popular press so take it with a grain of salt. Source: There's Growing Evidence That Venus Was Once Habitable Venus has a rep for being a toxic hellscape, but three billion years ago, it may have been the best piece of real estate our solar system had to offer—or at least, a close second to Earth. This hypothesis has been around for years, but it’s gaining traction thanks to climate models developed by researchers at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and elsewhere. Those models show that for two billion years, Venus could have had balmy, Earth-like temperatures and liquid water oceans, despite getting dosed with 40 percent more solar radiation than Earth is today. But it depends on whether the Venus of bygone days spun as slowly as modern Venus does. I'm looking for original source materials for this study. Bob Wilson
In a previous discussion here about Venus/Earth/Mars atmospheres, I was very pleased to learn better about IR absorption vs. pressure effects. This time it is about things that will surely interest a small group, but there seems to be a strictly low limit about what either of those other two planets can teach us about home sweet home. Sending people to Mars has kindled a lot of attention, but not mine. As for Venus, it would be much more convenient to just drop your victims in hot acid here. OTOH Moon remains a superb human target, and 'been there done that' remains regrettably incomplete thinking. If we are stuck with current generation of firesticks, doing the moon properly with them seems optimal use. This is of course a meatbag-based argument; robotics + firesticks is already doing much more to 'reveal' this solar system and I reckon we are not yet 10% of the way there. Thread hijacking: GUILTY
Not really, we are very curious people ... exceptional curiosity about all things ... and bored by the mundane. <GRINS> Bob Wilson
I don't like it when scientist compare other planets to ours. There is no other one like it. If we were simply 2 miles closer or farther from the sun in our rotation, this planet would be entire different. Yet, here we sit, at the exact distance from the sun to sustain life. Venus is simply too close to the Sun to hold anything that the earth has. The heat from the sun itself would evaporate water. CO2 gases is the only thing that can survive the extremes Venus goes through.
