Venus Probe Returns First Images

The BBC reports on the first images returned from Venus by the EU probe. From the article: "They show the hothouse planet's south pole from a distance of 206,452km. Mission scientists are already intrigued by a dark 'vortex' feature which can be clearly seen in one image. Venus Express will orbit the planet for about 500 Earth days to study its atmosphere, which is thought to have undergone runaway greenhouse warming." They're offering some high-rez images of the planet at the ESA website.

Whoa

[Xiph]

I don't really have anything intelligent to say. But i hope others who don't either will give me the peace and just say whoa, instead of coming with stupid puns, because these are truly cool pictures. so, don't write before you view. ESA has finally made something which isn't just cool, but looks cool too, and i hope they get the attention they deserve, because their funding needs it badly. anyway, cheers and enjoy the pics, i hope this'll still be the first post

Re:Earth days?

[Anonymous Crowhead]

Yes the clarification was necessary, each planet has its own definition of a day (that is, a complete rotation about its axis).

Well then now I am confused. The last sentence of the article asks why the Earth and Venus evolved so differently over the last 4.6 billion years. Are they talking Earth years or Venus years? They didn't specify. Or do you only have to do it once, like the trademark symbol? You know, just use it at the first instance and it's implied for the rest. Is that how it works?

I have an idea!

[tetrahedrassface]

/sarcasm on
Lets keep burning stuff like oil, and coal, and once that gone lets start chemically freeing carbon from limestone. Im sure at some point. With enough methane added in the mix we too can be like VENUS!
Yay,.
I propose we let our cars all idle..even when we are home! Hey..get involved! Its for America! :0
/sarcasm off

Runaway greenhouse effect?

[snookumz]

Maybe I'm being tedious, but I don't agree with comparing Venus to the Earth. The Earth is a complex system of oceans, atmosphere, plant, and animal life. Venus never had the kind of feedback loops that the Earth has. Venus is an example of how a planet that never developed a complex ecology would develop with an excess of CO2. Don't get me wrong. Venus is as much an example of the Greenhouse effect of CO2 as anything, but the Venusian skys weren't polluted by to many cars.

Re:Difference between NASA and ESA

[Tim C]

NASA is publicly funded... ESA is funded by various governments

Sorry, you're going to have to explain the difference there. NASA is funded by a single government and so has a duty to the public whose money it receives, while ESA is funded by a number of governments, and so doesn't?

I can't say that I really see the difference...

Has to be green house gases

[random coward]

It cant possibly be that Venus is 23 million miles closer to the sun. It cant be that Venus is 25% closer to the Sun than the Earth. Has to be the carbon dioxide. After all there can be only one cause for any effect.

Re:Seeing the future of Earth

[guardiangod]

please tell us what the difference was which made Venus undergo a runaway greenhouse effect and why such a runaway effect could never happen to our planet.

Maybe being 26.7 % [wikipedia.org] closer to the sun helps?

Re:Seeing the future of Earth

[craXORjack]

Maybe it helped. But then why has Mercury which orbits much, much closer never gotten as hot as Venus? We know this by the number of craters on its surface. Venus had a complete surface meltdown within the last 700-800 million years while Mercury has not. Radiation intensity from a point source diminishes according to the inverse square law so a 27% increase in orbit will only make a 38% decrease in solar intensity. Are you suggesting then that the greenhouse effect can not happen if solar radiation intensity is just slightly less than it is for Venus? Now that Venus is surrounded by greenhouse gases, what would happen if we could move Venus out to Earth's orbit? The heat input would only be 62% as much yet the heat output would not be significantly changed. Radiative cooling behaves in accordance with the absolute temperature to the fourth power. So its mean temp of 737 kelvin would only need to drop to 654 kelvin to maintain a steady state if it were in Earth's orbit. But I am still waiting for SetupWeasel to explain it to me since he dismisses global warming as 'environbabble'.