In recent years, the media have written a lot about the exploration of the Moon and Mars, bringing more and more unexpected and sometimes frankly sensational news. Another closest neighbor of our planet, Venus, somehow found itself in the shadows. But there is also a lot of interesting and sometimes unexpected things there.
SCIENCE IN SEARCH OF TRUTH
For a long time, Venus remained a kind of "unknown land" for astronomers. This is due to dense clouds constantly enveloping it. With the help of telescopes, it was not even possible to establish the length of the day on Venus. The first such attempt was made by the famous French astronomer of Italian origin Giovanni Cassini back in 1667.
He stated that the days on the Morning Star are almost the same as on Earth and are equal to 23 hours 21 minutes.
In the 80s of the XIX century, another great Italian - Giovanni Schiaparelli - established that this planet rotates much more slowly, but he was still far from the truth. Even when interplanetary locators went into action, it was not immediately possible to establish it. So, in May 1961, a group of Soviet scientists in this way came to the conclusion that a day on Venus lasts 11 Earth days.
Only a year later, American radiophysicists Goldstein and Carpenter were able to obtain a more or less real value: according to their calculations, Venus makes one revolution around its axis in 240 Earth days. Subsequent measurements showed that their duration reaches 243 Earths. And this despite the fact that this planet makes a revolution around the Sun in 225 Earth days!
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That is, a day there lasts more than a year. At the same time, Venus also rotates around its axis in the direction opposite to that characteristic of the Earth and almost all other planets, that is, the star rises there in the west, and sets in the east.
The size of the Morning Star hardly differs from the Earth: the equatorial radius of Venus is 6051.8 km, and that of the Earth is 6378.1; the polar radii are 6051.8 and 6356.8 km, respectively. Their average density is also close: 5.24 g / cm³ for Venus and 5.52 g / cm³ for Earth. The acceleration of free fall on our planet is only 10% more than that of Venus. So, it would seem that scientists of the past did not fantasize in vain that somewhere under the cloud cover of the Morning Star lurks life similar to the earthly one.
Back in the first half of the 20th century, popular science magazines painted that a nearby planet was in its development at the stage of a kind of Carboniferous period, that oceans were splashing on its surface, and the land was covered with lush exotic vegetation. But how far they really were from the true state of affairs!
In the 1950s, with the help of radio telescopes, it was found that the atmosphere of Venus has an enormous density: 50 times that of the Earth's surface. This meant that the atmospheric pressure at the surface of Venus is 90 times greater than the Earth's!
When the interplanetary automatic stations reached Venus, many more interesting things were discovered. For example, that the temperature on the surface of a neighboring planet is + 470'C. At this temperature, lead, tin and zinc can only be in a molten state.
Due to the fact that the dense atmosphere is a good heat insulator, daily and annual temperature drops on the Morning Star are practically absent even under conditions of an unusually long day. Of course, it is naive to hope to find life in such a hellish hell in its usual sense.
MYSTERIES OF THE MORNING STAR
The Venusian landscape is virtually no different from the endless, sun-scorched desert. Up to 80% of the planet's surface falls on flat and hilly plains of volcanic origin. The remaining 20% is occupied by four huge mountain ranges: Aphrodite's Land, Ishtar Land and Alpha and Beta Regions. When studying some photographs of the surface of Venus, taken by interplanetary robotic stations, one gets the impression that all over the planet are ruled by some volcanoes - so many of them. Maybe Venus is really still very, very young in geological terms and has not even reached the age of the Carboniferous period? In addition to volcanic ones, about a thousand meteorite craters have been discovered on the planet: on average, 2 craters per 1 million km². Many of them reach a diameter of 150-270 km.
The overheated atmosphere of Venus, from the point of view of earthlings, is a real hellish mixture: 97% of its composition is carbon dioxide, 2% nitrogen, 0.01% or even less oxygen and 0.05% water vapor. At an altitude of 48-49 kilometers, a 20-kilometer layer of clouds begins, consisting of sulfuric acid vapors. In this case, the atmosphere revolves around the planet 60 times faster than itself.
Why this is happening, scientists cannot yet answer. At the same time, the wind speed at high altitudes reaches 60 m / s, at the surface - 3-7 m / s. The sun's rays in the Venusian atmosphere are strongly refracted, as a result of which refraction occurs and it becomes possible, especially at night, to see what is beyond the horizon. The color of the sky is yellow-green, the clouds are orange.
The Venus Express probe discovered a mysterious phenomenon on its approach to the planet. The photographs taken from space show that there is a giant black funnel in the planet's atmosphere above its South Pole. One gets the impression that the atmospheric clouds are twisting into a giant spiral, which goes through a huge hole into the planet.
That is, Venus in this case looks like a hollow ball. Of course, scientists do not seriously think about the existence of an entrance leading to the Venusian underworld, but the mysterious spiral vortices over the South Pole of the planet are still awaiting their explanation.
Another strange phenomenon Venus demonstrated to scientists in 2008. It was then that a strange glowing fog was discovered in its atmosphere, which, having existed for only a few days, disappeared as unexpectedly as it appeared. Astronomers believe that on other planets, including on Earth, this phenomenon is most likely absent.
"BIRD", "DISK", "SCORPION"
However, the strangest thing is that on the planet, on the surface of which lead is melting, something very similar to the manifestations of life has been registered. Already in one of the panoramic photographs taken by the Soviet apparatus "Venera-9" in 1975, the attention of several groups of experimenters was attracted by a symmetrical object of complex shape, about 40 cm in size, resembling a sitting bird with an elongated tail.
In a collection published three years later under the editorship of Academician M. V. Keldysh "Planets rediscovered", this subject was described as follows:
“The details of the object are symmetrical about the longitudinal axis. Lack of clarity hides its contours, but … with some imagination, you can see the fantastic inhabitant of Venus … Its entire surface is covered with strange growths, and in their position you can see some kind of symmetry.
To the left of the object there is a long, straight white process, under which a deep shadow is visible, repeating its shape. The white tail is very similar to a straight tail. On the opposite side, the object ends in a large, white, rounded projection, similar to the head. The whole object rests on a short, thick "paw". The image resolution is not enough to clearly distinguish all the details of the mysterious object …
Has Venus 9 really landed next to a living inhabitant of the planet? This is very difficult to believe. In addition, in the eight minutes elapsed before the camera lens returned to the subject, it did not change its position at all. This is strange for a living being … Most likely, we see a stone of an unusual shape, like a volcanic bomb … With a tail."
In the same book, it was said that heat-resistant organic compounds were synthesized on Earth, capable of withstanding temperatures up to 1000 ° C or more, that is, in terms of the existence of life, Venus is not so unpromising.
Very interesting images were transmitted on March 1, 1982 by the Venera-13 apparatus. The lens of his camera got a strange, changing its shape "disk" and a kind of "panicle". Not only that, the measuring hammer of the interplanetary vehicle braided a strange object called the "black patch", which soon disappeared.
However, the "flap", most likely, was torn out of the ground during landing and was soon blown away by the wind, but the "scorpion" that appeared at the 93rd minute after landing, similar in shape to terrestrial insects and crustaceans, already in the next picture where disappeared.
A careful analysis of the successively taken images led to paradoxical conclusions: when the vehicle landed, the scorpion was covered with torn soil, but gradually dug a groove in it, got out and went somewhere.
So is life teeming with life in this hell with rains of sulfuric acid?..
Victor BUMAGIN