Although the telescope was not invented by Galileo, but it was he who seriously improved this instrument and, most importantly, guessed to direct it into the sky, laying the foundation for a new astronomy. Among the first celestial bodies he considered was Venus, the regularities of the appearance of which above the horizon were known even by the Sumerians, Egyptians and Greeks.
The first thing that struck Galileo was the crescent shape of Venus. Observing our space neighbor for several months, he discovered a phase change in her, like the moon. In the sickle phase, it seemed huge to him, and a month later, half lit, it did not look so big. The phases of Venus convinced Galileo that she, like the Earth, revolves around the Sun.
The Italian astronomer's observations were continued by the English astronomer William Herschel, famous for the discovery of Uranus. Having the largest reflector telescope in Europe, he was convinced that Venus is covered with a thick layer of clouds, reliably hiding its surface from observation. This planet, Herschel believed, will remain a celestial body for a long time, about which astronomers will say that they already know everything, and will immediately call it the planet of mysteries.
Lomonosov discoverer of the Venusian atmosphere.
Note: Herschel was not the discoverer of the Venusian atmosphere. Our Lomonosov discovered it before Herschel, observing the passage of the planet through the solar disk. In May 1761, he made a note: “A pimple appeared at the edge of the Sun, which became more pronounced the closer Venus came to the performance. This is nothing else than the refraction of the sun's rays in the Venusian atmosphere …"
In the 19th century, while studying the atmosphere of Venus with telescopes, astronomers could only speculate about its composition. Some said: the screen covering the surface of the morning star consists of volcanic dust saturated with carbon oxides. Others included formaldehyde, hot helium, water vapor and sulfuric acid in its composition, which made it possible to compare Venus with tartar - the devil …
In the 20th century, new means of studying planets appeared. The American astronomer D. Strong, having installed infrared analyzers in a balloon, raised them to an altitude of 25 km. The equipment found traces of carbon dioxide and water vapor in the spectra of Venus. The spectra of other components could not be deciphered. Later, French astronomers discovered a hot atmospheric spot near the south pole of Venus. Then they discovered other abnormal spots that appeared and disappeared at intervals of about 25 hours. A possible explanation is powerful volcanic eruptions.
Venus has no satellites. This mystery was investigated by the American astrophysicist J. Paris, who worked for some time at the Institute of Physics of the Earth of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In 1973, he put forward an idea: Venus did not always occupy an exceptional position in the solar system, and earlier it had satellites. But, unlike Earth and Mercury, it rotates in the opposite direction, that is, from west to east. This contributed to the faster deceleration of the satellites, which fell on the hot surface of the planet.
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The next important step in Venus exploration is radar. These studies were carried out by American, Hungarian and Soviet specialists. They specified the length of the day on the planet - 225 times more than on Earth. Radio beams, breaking through thick clouds, revealed many craters on the surface of Venus, similar to the moon. The thickness of the cloud layer is from 40 to 50 kilometers, and directly above the surface are incandescent, but highly rarefied gases.
In the 60s of the last century, great hopes began to be pinned on interplanetary space probes. Specialists from the USA and the USSR took up this difficult task. The Americans planned flights of spacecraft around the planet, and Soviet plans provided for the passage of probes through the entire atmosphere, followed by landing on the surface.
The Mariner-5 probe flew near Venus and established the temperature of its atmosphere - + 400 ° C.
The first two American attempts were unsuccessful. Only the third probe "Mariner" flew near Venus and established the temperature of its atmosphere - + 400 ° С. Soviet probes recorded a temperature of + 475 ° C, that is, higher than on Mercury. The surface of the neighboring planet never cools: the cloud layer prevents the redistribution of temperatures. The first pictures taken from its surface show: the stones there always glow with red light, like hot coals. Indeed, a hell of a picture!
Soviet and American probes provided a lot of new and unusual information. It turns out that Venus has not only high temperatures (in some places up to + 500 ° C), but also a huge atmospheric pressure: a hundred times more than on Earth. The cloud layer contains carbon dioxide, some nitrogen and sulfur dioxide. There is even sulfuric acid! The atmosphere itself is highly turbulized and moves at a hellish speed. Here the cloud layer rotates very quickly around its planet - it makes a complete revolution in just four days. This is 60 times faster than the own rotation of a celestial body. Therefore, the wind speeds there are crazy - over 100 m / s.
Soviet satellite "Venera-9".
The Soviet spacecraft Venera-9 and Venera-10, gently landing on the planet's surface, transmitted panoramic images to the Earth. They can be seen platforms covered with stones with sharp corners. The picture is mystical! After all, these stones are heated up to half a thousand degrees and look like dragon teeth …
It used to be thought that Venus should have a lot in common with our Earth, which is close to it in size. But an analysis of the data delivered by the probes showed that the planets are very different.
Image of the surface of Venus taken by SA * Venus 13 * on March 1, 1982, east of the Phoebus Region.
First, they have completely different atmospheres, and therefore different conditions on the surface. And secondly, there are significantly more active volcanoes on Venus. Some of them spew hot gases and ash continuously. Thirdly, the surface soil on our neighbor is more homogeneous than the terrestrial one, because it consists of some volcanic rocks. Images of the Soviet probes "Venera-15" and "Venera-16" showed that these rocks form mountain ranges, gorges, valleys, cones of high volcanoes and slit-like reefs - traces of previous extensions of the surface crust. And one more thing: there are thousands of times more lightning in the atmosphere of Venus than in the earth. They blaze continuously, and sometimes they are just champions in the length of the discharges - they pierce the cloud layer along the diagonals for hundreds of kilometers …
So, many mysteries hidden on the surface of Venus under the blind curtain of its atmosphere have cleared up. But new hypotheses, observations and discoveries did not stop.
The most interesting news about our neighbor appeared in the foreign press in November 2002: "There may be life on Venus!" Astrophysicists of the University of Texas L. Irwin and D. Schulze, rummaging through NASA documents on probes to Venus, found heaps of documents that remained without any scientific processing. Discovered graphs and spectrograms, allowing us to talk about another mysterious phenomenon of the Venusian atmosphere. According to the Texans, the sun's rays, streams of active particles rushing from the luminary and countless lightning must create an excess of carbon monoxide in the atmosphere of Venus. However, no such excess was found in the Venusian clouds, but an abundance of hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide was recorded. But these chemical compounds cannot coexist, because they actively react with each other. The thought suggests itself:in the atmosphere of Venus there is a kind of permanent mechanism for feeding the clouds with these gases. In addition, the analyzers detected an organic compound carbonyl sulfide in the atmosphere. How could it have formed there? It can be assumed: sulfur compounds in the upper atmosphere, where the temperature is + 90 ° C and some catalysts are not excluded, react with carbon oxides, absorb them and synthesize primary organic matter. That is why there is little carbon dioxide in the upper layers of the Venusian atmosphere, although below the volcanoes emit a lot of it. He, as they say, immediately goes into action.react with carbon oxides, absorb them into themselves and synthesize primary organic matter. That is why there is little carbon dioxide in the upper layers of the Venusian atmosphere, although below the volcanoes emit a lot of it. He, as they say, immediately goes into action.react with carbon oxides, absorb them into themselves and synthesize primary organic matter. That is why there is little carbon dioxide in the upper layers of the Venusian atmosphere, although below the volcanoes emit a lot of it. He, as they say, immediately goes into action.
After that, vortex flows throw organic molecules into that layer of the atmosphere where the temperature is + 70 ° C, and the pressure is not very high. And there the processes become more complicated - protein complexes, colonies of microbes are formed. After all, there are bacteria on Earth that live comfortably in the boiling water of geysers. And such creatures are analogs of the oldest life forms on our planet, when it was much hotter.