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----------------------------- 2246 - Venus - is this an early Earth?
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- By 2019 astronomers have discovered thousands of exoplanets in other solar systems. Many of these planets are orbiting their stars much like Venus is orbiting our star. These planets which have similar size and orbits may be studied using the closer observation of Venus in our own planetary system.
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- Could Venus ever have had conditions that could support life? Could this tell us about the likelihood of finding life on similar bodies like these exoplanets?
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- Astronomers use the transit system and the brightness dimming that occurs as exoplanets orbit their star. Using a little math they can determine the size of the planet and the distance it is orbiting. From this they can determine “habitable zones” where a rocky planet could have liquid water on its surface. Venus at one time was in one of these habitable zones.
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- The sun’s luminosity increases with age and at one point Venus began experiencing extreme surface temperatures that created a runaway greenhouse effect that boiled away its oceans. Does Venus today represent the end state for all habitable planets too close to heir sun.?
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- Today Venus has a thick noxious atmosphere. Clouds of sulfuric acid blanket the skies. The atmospheric pressure is equivalent to being 3,000 feet below Earth’s oceans. The atmosphere’s carbon dioxide has become a super fluid midway from being a gas and a liquid.
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- Venus lacks a magnetic field that could repel the soar wind. Surface temperatures are hot enough to melt rocks, over 800 degrees Fahrenheit. Plate tectonics is in the early stages of formation on Venus. Surface subducton is beginning and plumes of molten rock are rising to the surface.
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- Could Venus upheaval gives us clues to the conditions that eventually allowed life to emerge on Earth.
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- Venus is our sister planet. The second planet from the Sun. It is also known as the Evening Star, or the Morning Star. It is always lower on the horizon because the tilted orbits of the Earth and Venus only allow it to rise a maximum of 47 degrees above the horizon.
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- The Venus atmosphere moves much faster that the planet itself. Venus rotates once ever 243 days. Winds on Earth only move 10 to 20% the speed of the planet On Venus the winds are much faster that the planet’s rotation.
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- “ Gravity Waves” are upheavals in the Venus atmosphere caused by these winds colliding with the planet’s surface features. ( Not to be confused with “ Gravitational Waves” caused by merging rotating Blackholes that create gravitational waves spreading across the Universe. These gravitational waves were recently detected by the two LIGO observatories.)
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- The atmosphere of Venus is composed mostly of carbon dioxide and the atmospheric pressure at the surface is almost 100 times greater than that on Earth.
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- Why do we call Venus a twin sister planet?
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- Venus is similar size:
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------------ Venus radius ---------- 3,760 miles ------- Earth ----- 3,960
------------ Venus mass ----------- 82% Earth mass
------------ Venus gravity ---------- 91% Earth gravity
------------ Venus density ---------- same as Earth density.
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- Venus and Earth had similar planetary evolution. But, the Earth has liquid water and an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. Venus’s atmosphere is 97% carbon dioxide.
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- CO2 is a powerful greenhouse gas elevating temperatures to 864 degrees Fahrenheit. Hot enough to melt lead. Venus is covered in highly reflective sulfuric acid clouds.
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- The slow rotation means Venus lacks a magnetic field. The surface pressure is so high it would be like being under a half-mile ocean ( 900 meters). The Venus terrain is as varied as the Earth’s but, the surface is bone dry. All the water vaporized billions of years ago. The Sun’s ultraviolet light broke apart water ( H2O ) into hydrogen (H2), Hydroxide (OH) and oxygen (O2).
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- Sulfur dioxide discovered in the atmosphere is good evidence that Venus is volcanically active. If granite could be found on the surface that is a good indication that Venus once had oceans. Venus is a terrestrial planet orbiting in the Sun’s habitable zone. It has a metal core and silicate crust.
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------------------ Planet rotation ----------- 243.025 days
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------------------ Planet year --------------- 224.65 days
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- --------------- Venus orbit ---------------- 67,000,000 miles from the Sun
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----------------- Earth orbit ------------------ 93,000,000 miles
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- Venus has the most circular orbit found in the Solar System. Its orbit closest to Earth is 25,500,000 miles. Venus’s rotation is retrograde relative to the other planets. It takes the Sun 117 days to rise in the west and return to the same point in the sky.
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- The explanation for the Venus rotation is that in early evolution history Venus was impacted by another large planet. This happened to Earth 4.3 billion years ago, and, that is how our Moon was formed. Consequently the impact gave Venus day that is 2,800 hours long.
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- The ancient Greeks called Venus “ morning star “Phosphorus”, meaning “ bringer of light”. They called the evening star “ Hesperos” meaning “ star of the evening”. When they realized it was the same star they renamed it “ Aphrodite” meaning “ goddess of love”. It was the Romans that renamed it “ Venus”.
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- It was Nicholas Copernicus in the 16th century that realized that Venus did not circle the Earth. We both circle the Sun. It was Galileo and his crude telescope that first realized the phases of Venus were like the phases of the Moon. They depending on which side was facing the Sun.
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- Venus spends 9 ½ months as our Evening Star and another 9 ½ months as our Morning Star. Venus transited the Sun in 2012. Before that in 2004. But, the next transit not until 2117. In 1663 Scottish mathematician James Gregory calculated the Earth-Sun distance using trigonometry using these the transit measurements.
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- Other Reviews available about the planet Venus:
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- 1925 - Venus our sister planet . See 2246 for and update on Venus, February, 2019.
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- 1873 - Venus and Mercury
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- 1778 - Venus must have some resurfacing hiding many old crater scars.
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- 1729 - Walk with Venus on a Starry night . This review lists 7 other reviews about Venus. For example:
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- 1368 - The reflectivity of Venus is 75%. Compared to Earth’s 29%.
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- 945 Venus greenhouse effect.
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- 587 - Venus is tilted just 3 degrees for perpendicular.
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- 1480 - Learn how to calculate the Venus transit of the Sun. It happened in 2012. The transit took 67 hours on June 12. The next transit is in 2117. These transit measurements were first made in 1761, then again in 1769 making a calculation for the Earth - Sun distance to be 93,726,000 miles. Today our precise measurement is 92,955,000 miles.
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- Here is some more math just for fun:
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-------------- #1865 - Equations
------------- #1844 - Pascal’s wager
------------- # 1780 - How fast to orbit?
------------- #1750 - Math for fun.
------------- #1661 - Food for the brain
------------- #1650 - Combinations
------------- #1638 - Rent or buy
------------- #1565 - How fast is a satellite?
------------- #1521 - Powerful equations
------------- #1467 - Growth and decay of money.
-------------- #1459 - Modular math
-------------- #1281 - Solving problems , lists 14 additional reviews about math.
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- January 25, 2019 1925
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----- 707-536-3272 ---------------- Friday, January 25, 2019 -----
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