Friday, September 18, 2020

Hey, Venus!

I need a break from asinine political stories and personal accounts of sleep deprivation... how about a genuinely exciting news item? Scientists have found possible signs of life in the atmosphere of Venus! Venus has long been considered a Hell World, with surface temperatures of about 900 degrees Fahrenheit (465 degrees Celsius) due to a runaway greenhouse effect. The atmosphere is largely toxic to life as we know it- with clouds of sulfuric acid at crushing atmospheric pressure. Life, though, finds a way... even here on Earth, there are microorganisms which thrive in conditions hostile to human life. Perhaps the upper layers of Venus' atmosphere harbor life, which is what the discovery of phosphine gas through spectrographic analysis seems to suggest. If these traces of phospine are of biological origin, this is the discovery of the millennium- the existence of extraterrestrial life. Finding life in such an extreme environment would further push the boundaries of our understanding of life itself... such organisms would have to possess a biochemistry radically different from that of terrestrial organisms. The corrosive effects of sulphuric acid, so prevalent in the atmosphere of Venus, are dramatic, and rapid. A decade ago, I jocularly proposed a plan to terraform Venus using dirigibles which could house photosynthesizing cyanobacteria, thereby introducing terrestrial organisms to the less hostile precincts of Venus. If Venusian life exists, I have to rethink the ethics of such a project. This bit of nerdery was a welcome respite from the stupidity of the present political climate, which is every bit as corrosive as that of Venus. Another welcom respite is turning up the volume on the song from which I cribbed the post title: I still wouldn't want to have to write an ad campaign for travel to the planet, though

3 comments:

Marc McKenzie said...

Heh! A few years ago I was working on a couple of scenarios for a graphic novel. One was earth launching a manned mission to Venus to investigate the sudden terraforming of the planet which was due to alien technology. The other was a human being transported from our universe into one where Venus had life (taking a page or two from ERB).

Of course, there are some pretty good recent SF novels featuring Venus (or rather, Venus with life), like S.M. Stirling's THE SKY PEOPLE and Michael Martinez' THE VENUSIAN GAMBIT, which was the final book in his THE DEADALUS INCIDENT trilogy. Those books are worth checking out.

The news about Venus did make me smile, though. Maybe I will dust off those ideas and try working on that graphic novel; life's too short, after all.

Anathema Device said...

Venus it is, then. Because Earth is doomed. Ruth Bader Ginsburg just died, along with any hope that America, and behind it, the world, will do a damn thing to mitigate climate change.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Heh! A few years ago I was working on a couple of scenarios for a graphic novel. One was earth launching a manned mission to Venus to investigate the sudden terraforming of the planet which was due to alien technology. The other was a human being transported from our universe into one where Venus had life (taking a page or two from ERB).

Sounds fun! Leigh Brackett also had some groovy planetary romance stories set on Venus. She was one of ERB's most worthy successors before science mad this sort of story silly.

Venus it is, then. Because Earth is doomed. Ruth Bader Ginsburg just died, along with any hope that America, and behind it, the world, will do a damn thing to mitigate climate change.

It's too early to be despondent. Losing RBG is a blow, but November is when it all comes to a head. I hope Americans do the right thing, too many people have died, and many more are looking at impoverishment.