Active Volcxanoes Revealed on Venus

andr3w68
reply to post by lostbook

 

Correct! Extremeophiles have been found living on the ocean floor around volcanic vents. These areas experience similar conditions to Venus (extreme temps, acidic conditions).

There is no ocean on Venus. In fact, there is probably no liquid water at all. All life, as we know it, need liquid water to function.

reply to post by eriktheawful

But where liquid water is possible.

"Habitable zone" is a bit of a moving target.

Mars would be at the extreme end of Sol's habitable zone...unless it was larger and had a magnetosphere and had a CO2 (or methane) rich atmosphere.

Venus would be at the other end. But give it a thinner atmosphere rich in nitrogen...

Then there's moons...

Phage
reply to post by eriktheawful

 

But where liquid water is possible.

"Habitable zone" is a bit of a moving target.

Mars would be at the extreme end of Sol's habitable zone...unless it was larger and had a magnetosphere and had a CO2 (or methane) rich atmosphere.

Venus would be at the other end. But give it a thinner atmosphere rich in nitrogen...

Then there's moons...

Yep!

When I was a kid in the 70s, my father told me he could remember when he was a kid people used to think Venus would be a really steamy jungle world.

reply to post by eriktheawful

We rot in the molds of Venus,
We retch at her tainted breath.
Foul are her flooded jungles,
Crawling with unclean death.

-R.A. Heinlien

reply to post by wildespace


Given the pathetically small sample size of life that we can examine, when compared with the scale of the entire universe, it is somewhat ridiculous to assume that water is necessary, or even desirable for all forms of life. People use the term, life as we know it, to skirt around the possibilities presented by totally unheard of kinds of life. That is not acceptable as a way forward.

We should be looking for all possible life, even if we would not expect to see it, or immediately recognise it.

reply to post by TrueBrit

We should be looking for all possible life, even if we would not expect to see it, or immediately recognise it.

So. In looking for life as we don't know it, what do we look for?

TrueBrit
reply to post by wildespace

 

Given the pathetically small sample size of life that we can examine, when compared with the scale of the entire universe, it is somewhat ridiculous to assume that water is necessary, or even desirable for all forms of life. People use the term, life as we know it, to skirt around the possibilities presented by totally unheard of kinds of life. That is not acceptable as a way forward.

We should be looking for all possible life, even if we would not expect to see it, or immediately recognise it.

Considering how abundant water is in the universe and how it's the perfect medium for mixing organic chemicals, it's not really pathetic to think that we should be able to find "life as we know it" elsewhere.

We know how well it worked here on our planet. We have NO idea how life based on other compounds would work, or what we would expect to see.

If we ever find life that is based on something else, it will more than likely be because we literally stumbled upon it. Not because we were looking for it, because we have NO idea what to look for.

On the other hand, given the abundance of CHON (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen) in our universe, it's not unreasonable to look for something that we know about and that was very successful here on Earth.

However, how do we go about trying to detect life that uses liquid methane (as an example) as it's medium? What if, as we define "life", there are life forms that do not follow the "rules" we set up for defining life?

Life:

Any contiguous living system is called an organism. Organisms undergo metabolism, maintain homeostasis, possess a capacity to grow, respond to stimuli, reproduce and, through natural selection, adapt to their environment in successive generations.

What if some alien form of life does not follow how we define it in the above quote? How would we even know what we were looking at?

reply to post by Phage


Well, for a start, we should not limit our interest to planets which contain the chemical markers we associate with the necessary components of life. Venus is a hostile place, to be sure. It's atmospheric pressure, surface temperature, surface texture, corrosive environment, all combine to make it a hard place to explore with rovers, or even a fairly simple probe of some sort.

However, just because we assume that nothing of any import is there, that there is no life there, does not mean that it is not worth overcoming the difficulties associated with a Curiosity like mission to the surface. I accept of course, that the technological aspects of such a mission would be VERY challenging, but my point is that unless we look, we cannot know, for sure, what is, and what is not down there. I am not suggesting that Venus is home to a squat, muscular tribe of sentient life forms with a highly developed culture, or any such waffle. What I am suggesting, is that we cannot learn by ignoring extreme environments in our search for other life in the universe.

We should be looking to attain samples of every surface, every pool of chemicals, every atmosphere, between here and the edge of our solar system, so that we can increase the amount of data we have on this tiny, little, insignificant place we call our solar system, and eventually map every square inch of the planets therein. Without the results of such a process, all our assumptions will be based on too little data, to say that no life exists on any particular planet.

reply to post by TrueBrit


Life, in essence, is a chemical phenomenon, and it's not unreasonable to assume that life everywhere in the universe follows the same basic template and processes. Water, along with carbon, is uniquely suited to the development and functioning of life, and these components are abundant in the universe.

Totally different template for life may exist out there, but unless we find those organisms or signs of their activity directly, all we can do is look for environments that can support life as we know it.

reply to post by wildespace


Assuming anything about a space as large as the universe, with out exploring a significant percentage of it in great, close detail, IS unreasonable! I could understand if we were prone to these assumptions having visited a handful of galaxies, and sifted millions of worlds for their contents, at the inch scale, and found life only where water was present, but we have not even left our own solar system yet, and we get only fleeting glimpses of the rest of the universe via gravitational lensing, and the stunning, but distant works of space telescopes.

We would be better served at this point, by saying that we can find no proof as of yet, of lifeforms living outside what we consider normally habitable conditions, but that means next to nothing at this period in our exploration efforts!

reply to post by eriktheawful

It's [[sic]CO2] ability to help trap heat is well known and not a "theory".

Okay, let me quote myself.
“Is there any proof that CO2…can create the observed temperatures found on Venus from the Sun through a greenhouse effect?”

The reason Venus is so hot isn't a "theory", it's pretty well known.

So 800-900° temperatures have been shown to be caused by greenhouse gas effect through CO2? Do you have a link? What’s the difference between “pretty well known” and a theory?

So yes, even with these extreme life forms we have here on Earth, none of them would survive on the surface of Venus.

Maybe you missed the part about the possibility of life up in the Venusian clouds. It’s not my idea by the way.
Discovery.com

In fact, roughly 50 to 65 kilometers (30-40 miles) above the surface of Venus, conditions are quite hospitable. Both temperature and pressure are similar to those on Earth. Water vapor and even scarce amounts of free oxygen can be found there.
Astrobiological studies of Venus are, by nature, highly speculative. The notion sounds audacious but, from what we know of Earth life, it’s certainly not implausible.

BTW - the Circumstellar Habitable Zone aka Goldilocks Zone, aka Green Zone is the distance a planetary body with enough atmosphere is from a star for liquid water to exist.

I understand this and liquid water is thought to be responsible for life to exist.
What about liquid water found in the Venusian atmosphere?

Astronomers have detected that the atmosphere of Venus consists of 0.002% water vapor. Compare that to the Earth’s atmosphere, which contains 0.40% water vapor.

How about possible oceans inside some of Jupiter's and Saturn's moons?
And then there are microbes that can live in ice.
Could life exist on Saturn’s moon Titan? That would certainly be outside the "Goldilocks Zone".
How about possible liquid water underground on Titan?

Data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft have revealed Saturn's moon Titan likely harbors a layer of liquid water under its ice shell.
Cassini's detection of large tides on Titan leads to the almost inescapable conclusion that there is a hidden ocean at depth,

NASA.gov

As far as I'm concerned the term 'Goldilocks zone' is dead. It's inaccurate and misleading.

reply to post by intrptr

Neither does the exhaustive search elsewhere. I'll call it an "old theory" when they discover life elsewhere in the Solar System..

I don’t think we have been looking for ET life for very long outside of radio astronomy. At least it hasn’t been exhaustive. NASA hasn’t devoted much time for the exploration of possible life elsewhere. Mission priorities have the search for life way down on the list if it’s there at all. I believe that this has recently changed though.

As far as "extremophiles" (spelling?), all species any where on earth can be said to have moved to the extreme zone and adapted to it.

This appears like more speculation. I suppose it’s rational to assume that life should develop here and move then adapt seeing how we haven’t discovered it anywhere else. I just don’t think we should take this as fact. BTY I believe you spelled “extremophiles” correctly and I got it wrong.

To actually form in an extreme environment is a lot less likely. Especially in an extreme environment such as any other planet or moon in the Solar System.

Less likely but not impossible. Doesn’t the current theory for how life started here have an early Earth as an extreme environment? How did life establish itself on Earth?

reply to post by Devino


Here, take a read: Greenhouse Effect, especially scroll down to the bottom of the wiki to all the papers and articles used as resources.

In 1940, Rupert Wildt theorized that the large amount of CO2 in Venus atmosphere would trap heat, and, as it turned out much later with the probes we sent, he was right.

The possibility of microbes in the upper atmosphere of Venus is not the same as conditions on it's surface. Microbes in that part of the atmosphere would not be "extreme" life as was talked about earlier in this thread.

Liquid water can exist beyond the Goldilocks Zone, under special circumstances: Europa and Enceladus are good examples of those special circumstances, in that tidal forces from the gas giants they orbit provide the heat to keep water under the surface ice in liquid form.
That does not change the fact that on their surface: liquid water can not exist because they are outside the sun's CHZ.

The term CHZ is not obsolete: it is a zone around any star in which the temperatures would allow for liquid water to exist upon the surface of a planet with the correct atmospheric conditions. Every star has that zone.

But not every star may have a planet in that zone, nor if it does will those planets also have other conditions for liquid water to exist (IE a Mars like planet would have a atmosphere much to thin to allow for liquid water. The pressure is so low, that water's boiling point is below it's freezing point).

You are taking what the CHZ is WAY out of context. It does NOT mean: This is the zone in which life can be.

It does not mean that. It simply means: This is the zone in which liquid water can exist if conditions are right.

For example: Venus is on the inner part of the CHZ, and if you go high enough in it's atmosphere, the temps drop enough, but the pressure is high enough for water in vapor form to exist.

Kind of proves my point.

reply to post by TrueBrit

it is somewhat ridiculous to assume that water is necessary, or even desirable for all forms of life.

I agree with you but I feel I should also point out that water is a wonderful solvent with seemingly miraculous properties.
Why Is Water the Universal Solvent?

People use the term, life as we know it, to skirt around the possibilities presented by totally unheard of kinds of life. That is not acceptable as a way forward.

I think we should start with what we know and work out from there. Is life possible on Titan, for example, in a methane environment at temperatures around −179.2 °C?

reply to post by eriktheawful

Here, take a read: Greenhouse Effect, especially scroll down to the bottom of the wiki to all the papers and articles used as resources.

You want to prove your point through Wiki articles? If you could be so kind and link to the pertaining sources for me I would appreciate it. I understand greenhouse effect but this does not answer my question.

In 1940, Rupert Wildt theorized that the large amount of CO2 in Venus atmosphere would trap heat, and, as it turned out much later with the probes we sent, he was right.

There is CO2 and there is heat. Prove the one causes the other to this extreme. We are talking about a rise in temperature of several hundreds of degrees. Can you prove that the greenhouse effect causes such high temperatures?

The possibility of microbes in the upper atmosphere of Venus is not the same as conditions on it's surface.

So.

Microbes in that part of the atmosphere would not be "extreme" life as was talked about earlier in this thread.

The statement I made was possible life in the upper atmosphere of Venus not on the surface. At any rate I don’t think life could exist on the surface yet that doesn’t mean life does not exist on the planet, i.e. upper atmosphere.

Liquid water can exist beyond the Goldilocks Zone,

So you agree then? The term ‘goldilocks zone’ is bogus.

That does not change the fact that on their surface: liquid water can not exist because they are outside the sun's CHZ.

It doesn’t matter. For one, liquid water is thought to exist under the ice, which is outside the goldilocks zone, and there are microbes found on Earth that live in ice.

[CHZ] is a zone around any star in which the temperatures would allow for liquid water to exist upon the surface of a planet with the correct atmospheric conditions. Every star has that zone.

I feel your using Wiki again for your source information. The term goldilocks zone, which has now become circumstellar habitable zone (CHZ), originally described an area in our solar system where life was thought to be confined to because of the distance from the Sun. This has since been proven incorrect. The term is still misleading even with this new apparent upgrade found on Wiki.

You are taking what the CHZ is WAY out of context. It does NOT mean: This is the zone in which life can be.

What does “Habitable” mean in CHZ?

reply to post by Devino

Less likely but not impossible. Doesn’t the current theory for how life started here have an early Earth as an extreme environment? How did life establish itself on Earth?

Personally, it was placed here. But thats as provable as evolution (life from lifelessness). Just so you knew where I stand on it.

Thanks for the replies…

reply to post by Devino


Would you like for me to instead physically drag you to a library and use the reference books there?

The online wikipedia is a reference tool to be used to locate and understand information, with the sources cited for that information.

If you wish to not believe those published sources, that is on you.

Carbon Dioxide was first theorized to be a green house gas as far back as 1824 by Joseph Fourier. Arguments for and increasing evidence for the theory to be true was given in 1827 and 1838 by Claude Pouillet.

More experimental observations were done by John Tyndall in 1859 that held true, and in 1896 was quantified by Svante Arrhenius with his law called Arrhenius Law:

if the quantity of carbonic acid [CO2] increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of the temperature will increase nearly in arithmetic progression.

Venus has an atmosphere that is 96% CO2 as compared to Earth's 1%. On top of that, it has 92 more times the atmosphere as our Earth (read that as: it has a LOT more gas than Earth does).

Since you have decided that you will not accept an online source of documentation, then there really is little point in my posting links to published papers, on a subject that is taught in high school science.

The only thing I can suggest then, is that you head down to your local library and look up the composition of carbon dioxide, and find all the references of papers published by scientist since the early 1800's, going from theory to experimental proof in the 1940's and 1950's showing beyond a doubt that CO2 is indeed a green house gas, and coupled with significant quanities of it (IE Venus) that you do indeed get a very large positive feedback system that traps heat.

reply to post by eriktheawful

Would you like for me to instead physically drag you to a library and use the reference books there?

No, just post a link here. I’ll read it, I promise.

The online wikipedia is a reference tool to be used to locate and understand information, with the sources cited for that information.

Yes I know, I use Wiki all the time. Just remember that anyone can change the information on that site at any time. It is monitored yet bad info can still be found on Wiki. The key is to look at the sources and go there for your information.

If you wish to not believe those published sources, that is on you.

It’s not about believing or not and I think herein lies the problem. I have not seen anything that answers my question on Wiki or anywhere else. I am claiming that this information does not exist and I thought you might have found something to the contrary.

Let’s take a look at your Wiki link.
This page goes on about greenhouse effects on Earth. The conditions on Venus are very different than that of Earth.
So what do they say about Venus?

In the Solar System, Mars, Venus, and the moon Titan also exhibit greenhouse effects;

That may be true but to what extent?

A runaway greenhouse effect involving carbon dioxide and water vapor is thought to have occurred on Venus.[40]

That’s it!

Now let’s look at Wiki's linked source.

Not found.

Bad link I guess.

I then did a Google search for “Runaway greenhouse and the accumulation of CO2 in the Venus atmosphere” and found this on a pay site dated 13 June 1970.
Nature.com

There might be some interesting stuff in there but I wouldn’t know because I would have to pay to read the article. I was hoping that you actually did this small bit of research and maybe found something else we could read. It has been almost 44 years since that article came out afterall.

I also found another article during that search; Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect, but it doesn’t help your argument so i'll leave the information found on that site out. It’s an interesting read though.

Carbon Dioxide was first theorized to be a green house gas as far back as 1824 by Joseph Fourier. Arguments for and increasing evidence for the theory to be true was given in 1827 and 1838 by Claude Pouillet.

Again this is for the planet Earth not Venus.

Venus has an atmosphere that is 96% CO2 as compared to Earth's 1%. On top of that, it has 92 more times the atmosphere as our Earth (read that as: it has a LOT more gas than Earth does).

You can’t just increase the values from an Earth model and expect to get an inclined linear result for Venus. Other variables or unknown reactions could throw the results off. Even so has this been done yet? The question still remains. Are Venus’ high temperatures due to a runaway greenhouse effect?

Since you have decided that you will not accept an online source of documentation, then there really is little point in my posting links to published papers, on a subject that is taught in high school science.

When did I decide that? Geez, I’ll have to tell myself when I make these kinds of decisions. Where is this online documentation source? Can you link to even one “published paper”? How about a link to just some good old information? Wiki’s claim that it is “thought to have occurred” is not it.

The only thing I can suggest then, is that you head down to your local library and look up the composition of carbon dioxide, and find all the references of papers published by scientist since the early 1800's, going from theory to experimental proof in the 1940's and 1950's showing beyond a doubt that CO2 is indeed a green house gas,

Now you’re just being obtuse. This isn’t even the question. I know what greenhouse gasses are.

and coupled with significant quanities of it (IE Venus) that you do indeed get a very large positive feedback system that traps heat.

How much heat would be trapped? You don’t know do you? Could there be another reason for these observed high temperatures? This question certainly pertains to the OP on the question of possible Venusian volcanoes.

To conclude, show me the proof. Where is the evidence that Venus’ high temperatures are due to a runaway greenhouse effect? I think that without any real evidence then this is pure speculation and poor science.

andr3w68
reply to post by lostbook

 

Correct! Extremeophiles have been found living on the ocean floor around volcanic vents. These areas experience similar conditions to Venus (extreme temps, acidic conditions).

No, I'm afraid not. The average temperature on Venus is somewhere around 850 degrees. You may be able to find thermophile bacteria on earth that can survive for some time at up to 250 degrees, but not 850 degrees.

In addition, one of the best methods of sterilization is pressure cooking. Venus is a giant pressure cooker. It's an extreme pressure cooker. The atmospheric pressure is around 1300 psi, where the psi on earth is only around 15 psi. And a pressure cooker only operates at about 15 psi above earth's standard pressure.

Orders of magnitude of pressure
Pressure cooker psi source

reply to post by Devino


Uhm, the link that you provided:

Venus Doesn't Have A Runaway Greenhouse effect actually argues FOR it to be true.

Did you read the article all the way through? At the very beginning it has this:

What the science says...
Venus very likely underwent a runaway or ‘moist’ greenhouse phase earlier in its history, and today is kept hot by a dense CO2 atmosphere.

Under that is the "climate myth":

Climate Myth...
Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
Venus is not hot because of a runaway greenhouse.

The article this goes on quite clearly to explain why a "runaway greenhouse effect" is not a myth on Venus.

He does mention Steven Goddard having an alternate theory that it is caused by pressure, and not greenhouse gasses, but is why he is writing the argument showing that, no it was the gasses.

I mentioned the testing of the attributes of CO2 that have been tested extensively in labs.
You stated that is not acceptable because that is here on Earth and not on Venus.




Carbon Dioxide is Carbon Dioxide. It consists of one carbon atom and 2 oxygen atoms. It's the same for it on Mars, on Venus, on any other planet in the solar system.
It's freezing point, boiling point, and ability to act the way it does, does not change from planet to planet. On Mars we find it frozen at the poles where it is cold enough to be frozen solid, and in the air else where because it warms and sublimates into the air.

On Venus it's a gas. Temps of over 400 deg C is not enough to change it in anyway, and 92x atmospheric pressure is also not enough to change it in any chemical way. But the increase in pressure DOES change how much heat it can absorb...in makes it absorb even more.

What is different is the significant amounts of CO2, and the fact that there is not enough water on Venus to absorb it. As Venus heated up, the water evaporated, and the sun's UV rays broke the H2O down, to where the hydrogen escaped.

The result is: less and less water to absorb CO2, with more in the air, and less trapped in water. CO2 normally does not absorb the sun's light (average wavelength at 600nm), but that light is absorbed by the surface, and is the released at infrared, which CO2 will absorb that.

All gasses react differently when under pressure. At 92 times the atmospheric pressure of the Earth, the CO2 on Venus at that pressure has a much higher rate at absorbing, at about 5000 nm (this fits with Wein's Law).

That means on Venus, the CO2 is absorbing all that infrared (heat). It can not escape until it exceeds a certain temperature, which is about 735 K, which is, yep, 461 deg C......the surface temp of Venus.

Here are some other links to read about it:

Arizona State University - Venus
Scroll down until you get to The Greenhouse Effect

The Discovery Of Global Warming

While I am skeptic of AGW (man made global warming) I do believe in climate change, however, the above site has an enormous amount of information, including a HUGE bibliography of books published about Carbon Dioxide since the 1800's up through modern times.

And if you're up for it, you can even do your own experiment at home following these instructions:

CO2 Experiment

You can one up them even more, if you can can find a container that you can pressurize CO2 in one, and watch what the temps do with a pressurized CO2 bottle.

And with this post I'm outta here. Spent much longer on this than I had planed to, as I'm in the middle of a project using the new Unreal 4.0 game engine, and I've got a deadline to meet.

If you want, you can always debate Phage on this subject. heh,