Real images of what nasa discovered on Venus From the brightness of the planet,
to the mysteries that we still need to solve for it, and the probe that might
unlock its past. Allow us to show you Real images of what nasa discovered on Venus!
Right now, the two planets getting the most attention in our evening sky are the gas giants
of the solar system: Saturn, which through even a small telescope boasts a spectacular system of
rings, and Jupiter, which features a large disk crossed by gaseous bands and a retinue of four,
bright satellites that change their positions relative to each other from hour to hour and night
to night. Both planets are readily visible in the southwestern evening sky soon after nightfall.
And yet both of these behemoths are far inferior in brightness to the brightest planet in the sky:
Venus. That's right, our sister planet is so bright right now that depending on where you are
in the world you can see it before the sun sets. As Venus travels around the sun inside Earth's
orbit, it alternates regularly from evening to morning sky and back, spending about 9.5 months
as an "evening star" and about the same length of time as a "morning star."
This "dual identity" is actually a deep part of his history and discovery. Because due to how
Venus was perceived in the sky, the Greeks thought that it wasn't a planet, but two different stars.
It wasn't until Pythagoras that we realized that they were actually the same thing,
and not a star, but a planet. And one Galileo got time to observe the planet,
he further confirmed what it was and helped displace the very much held belief that Earth
was the center of our universe. Definitely not.
Now that we've honestly gotten the chance to observe Venus more with modern technology, what
are some of the things that we've honestly found on the planet? A big thing is that of craters.
One of the more imposing ones that people can't help but take a look at is the Mead Crater.
This impact crater is so large that it has a diameter of 168 miles.
But even though we know that much of what you see was made because of a large asteroid impacting the
surface, that doesn't mean that everything is solved. Because as certain pictures show, there
is a bright coloration on the impact site that may have a different origin than originally perceived.
The two likely options are that there was lava that hardened within the crater, possibly from the
impact of the asteroid. Or, when the asteroid hit, it was able to kick up a lot of particulate matter
that fell down into the crater and thus because some of these bright areas that we see now.
Hence why we need to further study Venus, so we can figure out more about these craters, their
origin, why they are the way they are, and so on. When you think about Earth, it has many things
that can shape the land, and one of them is volcanoes. They literally create islands when
they erupt out of the ocean, and they can cause widespread destruction when they're
erupting above the waters like with Pompeii or Montana. Yet did you know that Venus has a LOT
of volcanoes as well? To the extent that there are apparently just as many volcanoes on Venus
as there is on Earth. What's more, it helped make the planet what it is today.
Much of the Venusian surface appears to have been shaped by volcanic activity in some way
shape or form. Venus has several times as many volcanoes as Earth, and it has 167 large volcanoes
that are over 100 km (62 mi) across. The only volcanic complex of this size on Earth is the
Big Island of Hawaii.:154 This is not because Venus is more volcanically active than Earth,
but because its crust is older. Earth's oceanic crust is continually recycled by subduction at
the boundaries of tectonic plates, and has an average age of about 100 million years,
whereas the Venusian surface is estimated to be 300–600 million years old.
The volcanic activity is also believed to be a major reason that the atmosphere is what is today.
Furthermore, unlike Earth, there is no water to hide the volcanoes. Many of Earth's volcanoes
are underground, and as a result of that, they aren't fully noticed until they erupt and spring
out of the water to create islands like Hawaii and others. But on Venus, they're just...there,
and there are plenty of pictures showcasing these volcanoes and their impressive size.
Oh, and the biggest volcano on Venus? It has a height of being
5 miles above the surface. What's more, it's still said to be incredibly active.
Imagine if that thing blew up on Venus and were able to watch it.
that would be quite a sight indeed. Before we continue on with what we've
found on Venus, be sure to like or dislike the video so that we can make
the best content we can for you, the viewer. Also, be sure to subscribe to the channel!
One of the biggest questions that have been put out about our sister plan is the question of life.
For example, modeling studies have suggested that ancient Venus had big oceans and a clement
climate that might have persisted for several billion years. Then, obviously, the Greenhouse
Effect took over and roasted the planet to the point where everything boiled and life on the
planet became impossible to have and sustain. However, now some people are saying that this
wasn't an option at all for the planet. A study was published in October and it said that Venus
had always been too hot in order to not just have water, but to have life of any kind.
Scientists led by Martin Turbet, a postdoctoral researcher at the Geneva Astronomical Observatory
in Switzerland, simulated the climate of ancient Venus using a new model.
And they came up with very different results than what was put out before by others.
According to them, the cloud cover on Venus during its early days was very limited,
and just as bad, the ones that they did have didn't bounce away any of the sunlight that was
literally beaming down on them. As such, these clouds were actually helping WARM the planet,
and when they did that, they helped build up the Greenhouse effect to a great degree, thus
ensuring the planet would roast in no time flat. "If the authors are correct, Venus was always
a hellhole," astronomers James Kasting and Chester Harman said on the matter.
The goal now is for the teams of astronomers to go and look at the land masses of Venus
itself and determine what the true ancient climate of the place was.
"On our planet, such rocks form by metamorphic processes (in which minerals change form without
melting) that occur in the presence of liquid water," Kasting and Harman wrote. "If the
tesserae turn out instead to be basaltic, like normal seafloor on Earth, liquid water would
not have been needed to generate them, further supporting Turbet and colleagues' hypothesis."
The new study also found that Earth would likely have taken the Venusian route if the sun had
been a bit brighter long ago: A young sun with 92% of the current brightness rather than 70%
would probably have consigned our planet to hothouse status,
according to the model developed by Turbet and his team.
Why does that matter? Because right now many scientists are trying to find
another "Class M Planet" for us to go and live on in the future. Their parameters for lack of
a better word is to not just find a planet that looks like Earth, but is within the "habitable
zone" of the nearby sun. Not an easy thing to do for various reasons. But because of these models,
just because we DO find a planet like that doesn't mean it'll be habitable apparently...
"Exoplanets that orbit near the inner edge of the conventional habitable zone, where liquid
water can exist on a planet’s surface, might not actually be habitable," the duo wrote.
And if that is true, then Venus might have just opened our eyes not just to the uniqueness of
our own planet compared to other "habitable" planets out there. But it gives us a chance to
go and change our parameters for future colony sites, as well as ensure that we study planets
thorough despite how they might appear to ensure that we don't choose the wrong planet to colonize.
And if you look at the surface of Venus even further, you'll see why we don't want to make
the wrong choice of planet to try and colonize. Because Venus is truly littered with impact
craters that showcase just how unprotected the planet was from cosmic bombardment.
For example, the Dickinson Crater is 44 miles across, and has a very deep hole where the
projectile hit so long ago. But putting that one to shame is the Isabella Crater which is
over 100 miles in diameter, second only to the Mead Crater we talked about earlier.
While it's true that Venus isn't likely to get bombarded like before, that doesn't mean it
won't happen. Thus why many are trying to learn more about these impact craters and
ones like them to see how they were formed and what it might mean for the planet as a
whole. Such as with one theory going around that an asteroid or similar space rock
"bounced off" a younger Earth somehow and then collided with Venus.
Given the constant shifting of the universe during the stated creation, that wouldn't
be the most outlandish theory out there. But that's one of the things about Venus,
there are a LOT of theories out there, but few answers that truly answer the "big questions".
But in 2028, that is aiming to change with the Veritas Probe that will be launhced at Venus.
After launching, VERITAS will reach Venus about seven months later and enter orbit
around the planet. Over the next year, it will use Venus’ upper atmosphere to slow down and
circularize its orbit to about 250 kilometers (roughly 155 miles) from the planet’s surface
to map Venus in detail for years. VERITAS’ radar will map Venus’ entire
surface at 30 meters per pixel — at least three times higher resolution than NASA’s
previous Venus mapper Magellan. The maps will finally help scientists understand how
Venus’ surface changes today and how it has transformed over tens of millions of years.
VERITAS will also create coarse 3D maps of Venusian landforms at
5 meters per pixel height resolution to help scientists find hints of tectonic activity.
Scientists will further scan the maps for large, buried impact basins, which might have formed
around 4 billion years ago when large asteroids and comets were bombarding the inner solar system.
If Venus doesn’t have several impact basins like other rocky worlds do, it means the planet’s
surface has been actively reshaped for that long. The other reason that VERITAS is needed is because
it'll finally be able to do deep scans on the composition of the rocks on the planet
to determine if there was water on the planet, as well as reveal in
full whether the planet is volcanically active. All of this will lead to the big question that
the satellite will hopefully answer in...can Venus be habitable? Yes, right now it isn't,
but if the Veritas and other factors help reveal it can be changed through external means,
then that'll mean that we may not have to travel far to colonize a new world, but rather...just
go next door, and what an image that would be. Thanks for watching! What did you think of this
look at Venus and how the planet still has more to be revealed on it? Are you shocked
by what we do know, and yet still have yet to learn? Do you think this new probe will
be able to help get us the information we need to truly know our sister planet? Let us know
in the comments below, be sure to subscribe and we'll see you next time on the channel!