Venus Express enters orbit

[RedjackRyan]

Europe's Venus Express probe has gone into orbit around the planet after a five-month journey.

Early on Tuesday, mission controllers fired its main engine to reduce its speed and allow it to be caught in the planet's gravitational pull.

Venus Express will orbit our nearest planetary neighbour for about 500 Earth days to study its atmosphere, which has undergone runaway greenhouse warming.

The mission should shed light on the mechanisms of climate change on Earth.

The main engine burn was initiated by controllers at the European Space Agency (Esa's) operations centre in Darmstadt, Germany at 0717 GMT.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4895792.stm

[Eva]

Captain Redjack,

Did you make sure PA Randy is on board?

Pirate Queen

[gisli]

He, he, he, he.........

[DaveM]

Venus needs pirates....a whole world that has never been pillaged.

Mind, I am thinking of Robert Heinlein's Venus--not the one which science has revealed during the past 50 years.

[RedjackRyan]

Well Eva, i would have.. but it seems the ESA has some rule against sending a potentially dangerous organism into space.



Venus needs Pirates, and Mars needs Women.. maybe we should get the two of them together?

[Eva]

Well Eva, i would have.. but it seems the ESA has some rule against sending a potentially dangerous organism into space.

Hmm, they have a point there. And he is not very fit to be a representative from this world either... :rolleyes:

Venus needs Pirates, and Mars needs Women.. maybe we should get the two of them together?

Good idea. I would love to conquor two worlds!

Pirate Queen

[Green Monkey]

The mission should shed light on the mechanisms of climate change on Earth. I think the idea that the currently unchanging climate of Venus, which is roughly 90 times as dense as Earth's atmosphere, and radically different in composition from Earth, could tell us *anything* about climate *change* on Earth is really dopey, Sorry.

Anthropogenic climate change on Earth is real, observation shows us its happening. The *mechanisms* causing this are *here* to be studied. The fact that both atmospheres contain some CO2 is almost irrelevant methinks, for the purposes of comparing their atmosphere. Venus' atmosphere is roughly 97% CO2, Earth is roughly 350 ppm (parts per million) CO2. Venus' day is 243 days long, Earth's is 24 hours long. Venus has no priotective magnetic field, Earth does have one. Venus has no oceans to buffer temperature and CO2, Earth is about 70% water surface area. Venus has no ice caps or glaciers (obviously). It does not rain water on Venus, though there is believed to be some virga of sufleric acid which never reaches the surface. Venus is closer to Sol, yet reflects more energy back into space than the Earth does, due to its high albedo (the result of that thick, opaque atmosphere). The actual amount of solar insolation on Venus' surface is less than the Earth's surface, due to this fact. Venus has no moon and no lunar tides. Venus has no life, and we know that the presence of life on Earth has played a dominant role in both the composition of our atmosphere and the climate we enjoy.

None of the detailed mechanisms controlling Earth's climate exist on Venus, save simply that the so-called Greenhouse Effect is obviously in effect there. Earth's climate and the mechanisms controlling it are so much more complicated than Venus' that its not even funny.

If the sole purpose of looking at Venus is for the purpose of 'verfying' some radiative enrgy balance models, as some of the climate researchers of Venus have stated, then those guys know far far less about the problem of modeling Earth's climate than I ever gave them credit for.

Sorry, but this is my Physics training speaking here. NOAA and NCAR are down the street from here, btw, and I get to talk from time to time with climatologists who are friends of mine about climatology.

GM :D

[Eva]

I read a childrensbook once in which it turned out that Venus did have inhabitants. Humans just didn't know. And it was possible for humans to survive there, once they had the courage to get rid of their spacesuit... I loved the book. As a child and later too. Fantasy, but a lovely one.

Eva

[DaveM]

I have often wondered if, by some miracle, we were ever to encounter extraterrestrial life, if we would recognize it as such. Or if it would recognize us.