Venus, our closest neighbor in the solar system, may have been inhabited in the distant past. Or even in the present. At least some non-protein form of life is theoretically capable of existing today in the extremely aggressive conditions of the "greenhouse effect" of Venus, scientists are sure. The joint project of Roscosmos and NASA on the study of the second planet from the Sun - "Venus-D" is called upon to confirm or deny this postulate. If everything goes according to the approved plan, the earthlings will receive the first high-quality data from this planet already in 2027. And, perhaps, also, the answer to the main question is whether our Earth will repeat the fate of its closest neighbor: having turned from the once blossoming and paradise Eden into a real and ruthless hell.
For the "morning star"
On clear weather days, if you look in the direction of the setting or rising sun in the evening or in the morning, you can see two stars with the naked eye, whose glow will be many times brighter than usual.
These are two planets of our solar system: Jupiter and Venus. In order not to get confused where exactly which one is, one should simply draw an imaginary line from the visible horizon to these luminaries, astronomers advise. That bright star that is lower to the visible surface and brighter will be, unmistakably, Venus. Astrologers promise everyone good luck in the coming year, who will be able to see this rare and beautiful astronomical phenomenon even with an eye and for a short time. However, the "morning star" has always enjoyed great attention among earthlings. Mentions about it can be traced among different peoples of the world throughout the history of human civilization.
Myths - a "fabulous" chronicle of real history
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Quite serious scientific treatises about Venus can be found in the Sumerian priests. It is known that, without complicated astronomical instruments, with minimal mathematical errors, they were able to calculate not only the trajectory of the second planet from the Sun in relation to the Earth, but also to calculate its orbit around the center of our system - about 225 Earth days. It is also noteworthy that the scientific elite of the most ancient Mesopotamian civilization was sure that Venus is not just teeming with flora and fauna, as they reflected in their thousand-year cuneiform works with the utmost pedantry, but also that it is … inhabited by intelligent beings.
Despite the fact that at that time it was a widespread practice to ascribe to all celestial bodies "divine properties" and even names (For example, in ancient Greek mythology, Venus personified the goddess of love), the Sumerians were sure that "Gods" lived on Venus. Unfortunately, from the scattered Sumerian cuneiform script, partially preserved to this day, it is, alas, impossible to glean more information about Venus.
However, there is another interesting fact - similar hints can often be found in other, later civilizations, which, like the Sumerians, revered the "morning star" as something more than just another celestial body. According to the research of already modern researchers of myths and legends, "Gods from Venus" are mentioned not only in Sumerian records, but also in the epics of ancient India, China and even North American Indians. It is curious that in ancient Egyptian history, Venus had its own special status in the galaxy of numerous deities.
The theory that one of the wonders of the world that has survived to this day - the pyramid complex in Giza, symbolizes a certain connection with the messengers of the "morning star", with the help of rigorous mathematical calculations, was presented in his voluminous monograph several years ago by a modern Russian researcher Evgeny Nikolaevich Menshov, candidate technical sciences, associate professor of the Ulyanovsk State Technical University.
In his painstaking research, supported by dispassionate algebraic and astronomical calculations, he claims that through the prism of studying the architectural model of the Egyptian pyramid complex at Giza, one can find hypothetical traces of a relict intelligent civilization on Venus.
Having subjected the ancient Egyptian letters to a scrupulous analysis, Evgeny Menshov draws attention to one remarkable detail that the sister of one of the representatives of the highest pantheon of the ancient Egyptian deities of Osiris - Isis, as well as their son Horus, are inextricably linked with the "morning star". Professional Egyptologists also confirm this fact, but so far it has not been possible to unambiguously interpret this. Perhaps these "divine neighbors" taught earthlings all the necessary sciences and crafts. But it is impossible to say for sure, as well as the fact that it was the alien civilization that helped launch the flywheel of technological progress for mankind.
Venus - home of the titans
Remembering the ancient mythology further, it is also impossible to ignore the beautiful legend of the titan Prometheus, who treacherously stole fire from his elder gods and taught ordinary mortals to use it. In modern language, he showed how to use it in everyday life and in production. For this daring and revolutionary attempt at "technological aid" Prometheus, as you know, paid a terrible price with his divine status and his homeland. He was forever "chained to the rocks" on the Earth so beloved by him. In addition, according to legend, an eagle also pecked out his constantly "regenerating" liver.
The well-known European supporter of the theory of "Paleocontact" (The theory that in ancient times the Earth was visited by aliens) Erich von Deniken claims in his works that the myth of Prometheus can be easily translated into a modern way. So, a certain alien creature, or, most likely, a group of alien beings, following unknown motives, despite the prohibitions and threats from their older (dominant) brothers in reason, decided to share with earthlings a part of their knowledge in order to surely accelerate the technological development of mankind for that historical stage. And immediately after the earthlings received technologies "forbidden for them", "Prometheus" was subjected to some terrible punishment.
However, further, in the absence of reliable facts, and the possible inaccuracy of the same mythological interpretations, it seems almost impossible to describe the punishment for "Prometheus" in the modern semantic framework.
Some Russian supporters of the theory of "Paleocontact" are sure that we are talking about the planet closest to us - Venus, on which representatives of civilization lived in those ancient times, by which it is permissible to understand the collective image of "Prometheus" - messengers of the gods. The "punishment" for them was some artificially caused cataclysm, which made this planet unsuitable for life. And we still see its terrible consequences, perhaps left to humanity as an edifying lesson that we have yet to comprehend.
It is noteworthy that the hypothesis of a catastrophic and sudden appearance of an aggressive "greenhouse effect" on Venus is the same for both professional scientists and researchers of the unknown. According to one of the most authoritative Russian ufologists, Vadim Chernobrov, speculation about the existence of a once intelligent life on Venus is fully justified by a large historical heritage, which is reflected in myths and legends on different continents of the globe. However, what happened to their highly developed civilization and where the gods themselves disappeared is a rebus covered with a train of hundreds of beautiful myths and fairy tales. Today, this version has the right to exist only, alas, at the level of speculation in the near-scientific plane.
Hell is near
With the appearance of the first serious telescopes, disputes about possible life on Venus, in any of its manifestations, began to haunt the scientific world until the middle of the 20th century. By that time, thanks only to the then simple observation of space and its objects from the Earth, many world-famous astrophysicists asserted favorable conditions for the presence of certain forms of vital activity on Venus.
The proximity to the Sun, an acceptable orbit, a suitable rotation of the planet and … even the presence of an atmosphere and clouds, which were clearly visible through the eyepieces of not the most powerful telescopes of that time - all this gave rise to violent discussions about the types and manifestations of life on Venus among professional scientists. However, the very first data received from the interplanetary Soviet spacecraft of the Venera series destroyed all hopes and dreams of meeting brothers in mind on the planet closest to us. It turned out that the temperature of its surface is hot up to 500 degrees Celsius. Atmospheric pressure, on average, is almost a hundred times higher than that of the Earth.
And the very clouds that haunted astronomers and were once a sufficient "basis for the life of intelligent organisms" consist mainly of sulfuric acid and carbon dioxide. In addition, the rotation speeds of these atmospheric fronts, which are truly deadly for all living things, are tens, if not hundreds of times higher than Earth ones.
Together, this puts an end to not only the search for a similar terrestrial protein form of life on Venus, but also makes it technically extremely difficult, if not fantastic, to study this planet. After all, all the descent vehicles could not work for more than two hours in these, literally, hellish conditions.
Russian scientists still admit the possibility of the existence of certain forms of life in the higher layers of the atmosphere of Venus, where the conditions of temperature and pressure are less aggressive and more comparable to those on Earth. So, in 2012, within the walls of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, based on modern processing of old photographs of the Soviet interplanetary missions "Venus", a sensational version appeared about the presence of organic life on this planet.
Then Russian scientists were able to document distinct objects in their shape resembling a "disk", "black flap" and "scorpion". However, the heated discussion among Russian experts that followed this discovery met with cold criticism of their overseas colleagues. NASA considered this "photo evidence" to be nothing more than simple interference due to loud noises, an aggressive local atmosphere and imperfect Soviet technology. Nevertheless, in the Russian scientific community, these data received optimistic responses even from the creators of the Venera telemetry system themselves. Among other things, the joint Russian-American project on the exploration of Venus, tentatively titled "Venus-D", which has been preparing for several years, is intended to dispel this new dispute.
According to the information provided by the IKI RAS, First of all, this mission aims to find answers to earthly questions through the study of the nature of the "greenhouse effect" of Venus. What was the reason for its development to such an extreme phase … According to the official hypothesis, many millions of years ago, Venus could have had atmospheric conditions quite similar to those on Earth.
If scientists from Russia and the United States can agree on all the details of the upcoming large-scale project, then very soon, by space standards, in just some ten years, the whole world will be able not only to see new, high-quality images from the surface of the "morning star" but also, possibly, to understand - is it worth humanity to fear a repetition of the terrible fate of its closest neighbor - Venus….