Thread  RSS Ancient Venus may have had oceans until 2.9 billion years ago



# 12556 9 years ago on Fri, Feb 12 2016 at 11:21 am

I saw this article the other day, which, based on a simulation, argues for Venus being able to hold liquid water on its surface until 2.9 billion years ago. If accurate, this has a number of interesting consequences: first, that planets orbiting other stars near the inner egde of the stars habitable ("goldilocks" raspberry ) zone may remain habitable for much longer than previously thought. The article makes in particular the case that Venus' slow rotation (a Venus day is slightly longer than a Venus day) would actually - paradoxially - be beneficial for retaining the oceans. This is also something to consider for planets orbiting around very dim stars (M-class stars or 'red dwarfs'), which are invariably going to be tidally locked to their stars, meaning one side would permanently have "day", while the other side would permanently have "night".

user link on arxiv.org

(This post was edited 9 years ago on Friday, February 12th, 2016 at 11:21 am)

# 12566 9 years ago on Fri, Feb 12 2016 at 6:12 pm

That's pretty damn cool!

I have heard before that Venus and Mars were good candidates for being (somewhat) Earth-like a long time ago. Not to get into that panspermia nonsense but it would be interesting if it were easier for planets to, at least for part of their existence, achieve nearly Earth-like properties.

Long term, if humans are going to colonize other planets in the distant future, stuff like that would be good to have a handle on.

"Dangerous toys are fun, but you could get hurt!"

# 12569 9 years ago on Fri, Feb 12 2016 at 6:41 pm

Wasn't Venus likely similar to Earth before a runaway greenhouse effect transformed it into what it is today?

I find it fascinating that, as we learn more about other planets, Earth isn't quite as unique as we previously believed. That greatly increases the possibility that life has occurred in many other places.

73's, KD8FUD

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# 12613 9 years ago on Sun, Feb 14 2016 at 6:24 am

On Friday, February 12th, 2016 at 11:41 pm, Nitrocosm said:

Wasn't Venus likely similar to Earth before a runaway greenhouse effect transformed it into what it is today?

I find it fascinating that, as we learn more about other planets, Earth isn't quite as unique as we previously believed. That greatly increases the possibility that life has occurred in many other places.

Yes, the general idea is that prehistoric Venus was very earthlike up to a certain point (around 2.9 billion years ago, according to the article). Which would mean that the planet had some 1.7 billion years of being earthlike from its formation - which would be enough to have some form of (well, single celled) life going.

# 12615 9 years ago on Sun, Feb 14 2016 at 6:30 am

Fascinating. Any traces of such life have long since been destroyed by the enormous pressure and corrosive atmosphere, I would imagine.

If only we could send a probe robust enough to survive long enough to dig up potential fossils...

73's, KD8FUD

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