Author Topic: Mathis on Velikovsky +  (Read 819 times)

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Mathis on Velikovsky +
« on: December 16, 2018, 06:51:11 pm »
1. Mathis on Velikovsky http://funday.createaforum.com/mike-messages/1-110/msg235/#msg235
2. Youthful Atmosphere of Venus http://funday.createaforum.com/mike-messages/1-110/?message=237
3. Nature of Venus' Heat http://funday.createaforum.com/mike-messages/1-110/?message=238
4. Surface Of Venus -- "A Newborn Babe" http://funday.createaforum.com/mike-messages/1-110/?message=239
5. Evidence for the Extreme Youth of Venus http://funday.createaforum.com/mike-messages/1-110/?message=240
6. CutFog Forum Discussion http://funday.createaforum.com/mike-messages/1-110/?message=332

Paraphrasing + Comments on Miles' recent paper, Beyond Velikovsky, at http://milesmathis.com/vel2.pdf (Vel. means Velikovsky.)

_MM -- Vel. is from prominent Jewish families who faked all recent history, their modus operandi being to tell only as much truth as a project will bear, so where the truth ends, misdirection begins.

_MM -- The intent of Worlds in Collision is "eyes-off", which is to give a partial reading of data to prevent a fuller reading, like Robin Gardiner's Titanic project, which misdirected attention from Lloyd's of London, Astor et al, and the Titanic never sank at all. (LK -- Did the Olympic sink in its place?)

_MM -- Vel. claims Venus was ejected from Jupiter, then appeared as a comet and came close to Earth before settling into its present orbit. (LK -- And he said Venus is hot because it's a new planet.)

_MM -- The mainstream doesn't admit that Venus must have recently experienced a catastrophe; Venus and its spin are very round, so there was no collision, but maybe a close pass with Earth or another body.

_MM -- Vel. admits all planets have excess heat, but he gives the wrong reason; it's because Venus' poles and/or spin are reversed, causing a magnetic effect that spins incoming photons up in polar through-charge, causing more heat, and Venus' spin will reverse and go in the same direction as other planets, but it takes a long time for the Sun's charge field to reverse the spin of such a large planet.

_MM -- Vel. is wrong about Venus nearly colliding with Earth, because Earth did not heat up significantly, but only suffered darkness and other minor changes, and he's wrong about Venus' heat coming from recent formation and the mainstream is wrong about the greenhouse effect, because as Vel. said, thick Venusian clouds would block solar heat, causing cooling, not heating, and Venus reflects most of the light it receives, which also prevents heating.

_MM -- In reality Venus' heat comes up from below via the charge field. (LK -- But the charge field comes from the Sun, doesn't it, which means it comes from above, not below? If Venus were newly formed, as Vel. said, its heat would come up from below. It seems more likely that Venus was heated some other way. Maybe the flipping of its axis heated it at least partly. Talbott and Cardona thought Venus, Mars and Earth were formerly satellites of Saturn, that Saturn was a brown dwarf star that flared as a nova, and Venus was closest to Saturn, so the nova may have heated Venus too.)

_MM -- The mainstream avoids seriuosly discussing why Venus' data is so unusual; evidence indicates Venus has flipped its axis recently, but Miles can't yet calculate how recently. (LK -- Catastrophists have discussed this and have shown that the present rate of heat loss on Venus indicates that it should cool to normal levels within a few centuries or millennia.)

_MM -- It's unlikely that, as per Vel., Venus was ejected from Jupiter as a comet. (LK -- I think Vel. thought Jupiter's Great Red Spot could have been the birthplace of Venus. John Ackerman still thinks so. I think that's unlikely, but I recently noticed this article: An exoplanet loses its atmosphere in the form of a tail https://phys.org/news/2018-12-exoplanet-atmosphere-tail.html . So, even if Venus wasn't ejected from Jupiter as a new planet, it seems entirely plausible that it could have looked like a comet, if it lost some of its atmosphere in the form of a tail. Mythology around the world says Venus was a comet, which is where Vel. got the idea. And it's likely that Earth lost much of its atmosphere recently too, because large land animals needed the extra buoyancy in order to move under the present gravity conditions. And dinosaur bones have been C14 dated to only tens of thousands of years, not millions.)

_MM -- It's also unlikely that Venus was ejected as a moon from the Jupiter or Saturn systems (LK -- or others), because the present moons of those systems would still be in turmoil. (LK -- That depends on how long it takes orbits to normalize. Iapetus has a 2 million mile radius orbit around Saturn inclined at nearly 16 degrees from Saturn's equatorial plane. Dust, gases and ions earlier in the systems may have caused the circularization of orbits much quicker than without that debris. The same applies to Venus' orbit circularization.)

_MM -- Bode's law corrected explains that smaller planets should orbit nearer than large ones, thus Saturn (LK -- etc) tends to move below Jupiter's orbit (LK -- and Mars below Earth's).

_MM -- The asteroid belt was likely caused by close planetary encounters in that way, and a similar recent encounter likely involved Venus moving from a farther orbit past Earth to its present orbit and flipping on its axis while passing.

_MM -- Mars was probably involved in the asteroid belt event, as it's close to the belt, and there's plenty of room above Earth's orbit for Venus to have come from there, and Mars appears to be moving toward the gap that Venus left.

_MM -- The moon of Mars is getting closer to it because Mars is moving inward, while Earth's Moon is moving farther from Earth because Earth is moving outward and Earth's period was likely shorter. (LK -- Some ancient records say it was 360 days.)

_MM -- Venus and Earth did not dance together in Biblical times, but they may have much earlier. (LK -- Talbott and Cardona independently concluded that indeed the encounter between Earth and Venus was at least a thousand years earlier than Vel. thought and was not mentioned in the Biblical record. I think they expressed perplexity as to how Vel. concluded that Venus was involved in the plagues of the Exodus event.)

_MM -- The Moon may have previously orbited Venus, or it may have been on the far side of Earth as Venus passed etc. (LK -- Some ancient records seem to say Earth initially had no Moon.)

_MM -- Vel. was likely misdirecting readers away from evidence of the photonic charge field. (LK -- I don't know if the ruling class's experts knew about the charge field then, in 1950. Vel. and his successors, Thunderbolts, have favored electrical forces as having major effects. I'm not sure yet that Vel. was trying to misdirect. It's possible, but I need better evidence. I know some of the Thunderbolts people and it seems they just haven't been able to follow Miles' explanations well enough. Some of their forum members like many of Miles' ideas, including me, and we discuss them there sometimes. But I'm open-minded on whether there has been intentional misdirection.)

_MM -- Thunderbolts is claiming that there are no photons. (LK -- I haven't heard that. I'd say most of them consider photons as massless. If they've said there are no photons, I'd like to see where they say that. On this page https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2011/09/02/essential-guide-to-eu-introduction/ they say: "Electric fields are detectable in two ways:  when they accelerate electrons, which emit observable photons as synchrotron and Bremsstrahlung radiation, and by accelerating charged particles as electric currents which are accompanied by magnetic fields, detected through Faraday rotation of polarized light." So I think Miles needs to correct the statement.)

_MM -- The governors wanted to keep the charge field secret, except for a few military scientists. (LK -- That would be more plausible if there's evidence that military scientists have done anything that would likely have only been possible if they knew about the charge field.)

_MM -- Vel. followed the pattern of Ignaeius Donnelly who also divulged a lot of good data, but then blackwashing it. (LK -- I'm interested in what data was blackwashed.)

_MM -- By burying the data from both of them, the governors squelched discussion and research. (LK -- That's very plausible, that they intended to make anyone who discussed such subjects pariahs. However, they could have done that even if Vel. and Donnelly were not controlled opposition.)

_MM -- To keep control of science, they had to keep everyone in the gravity-only, math-based, relativity/QED fog; if the average scientist understood the charge field, a real revolution would have been quick.

_MM -- Vel. was wrong on specifics, but right in general, e.g. (LK -- cataclysmic) events weren't caused by Venus, since it passed Earth earlier, but they may have been caused by comets, asteroids and meteors, even according to his evidence.

_MM -- Vel's theory that Venus and later Mars caused the cataclysms is fanciful and unnecessarily complicated. (LK -- Thunderbolts tries to interpret the mythological records accurately and they do seem to indicate that Venus and Mars were inner moons of Saturn, which eventually destabilized and the pair caused some havoc in the inner solar system, not necessarily directly on Earth.)

_MM -- Vel. was paid to blackwash the truth, i.e. the charge field, ancient texts, amateur scientists and the public. (LK -- Maybe, but the evidence seems slim, and it seems that Vel. believed in what he found, and I don't know of evidence that anyone else guided or controlled him. He claimed that he made his discovery about Venus etc in 1939, I think, when he had the theory that Moses, not Akhenaten, was the original monotheist.)

_MM -- Before WW2 the public had considerable knowledge of science, but less and less thereafter.

_MM -- The Vel. affair pre-blackwashed Miles' findings with help from Thunderbolts. (LK -- Miles said almost nothing is said about Thunderbolts this time. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the moneyed supporters of Thunderbolts are working for the governors, but I'd be very surprised if Talbott, Thornhill, Scott, Cochrane, Cardona, van der Sluijs and others are working for them.)

_MM -- The governors weren't prepared for someone like Miles, because his methods are unprecedented and he has taken advantage of their own tools, like the internet. (LK -- I'd like to know how Miles was educated. There's an organization called the Institutes for the Advancement of Human Potential, which found that almost all kids have genius potential, and they've been trying to help parents learn how to help their kids develop that potential. So I think genius would be common if society would learn how to develop it, like IAHP teaches.)
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Re: Mathis on Velikovsky +
« Reply #1 on: December 24, 2018, 05:53:48 pm »
The Youthful Atmosphere of Venus [Aeon Journal]
From: Aeon I:6 (1988)

_The Youthful Atmosphere Of Venus, Charles Ginenthal
_In Worlds in Collision Immanuel Velikovsky claimed that Venus is a new planet. (1) Analysing mythological and historical evidence, Velikovsky concluded that less than ten thousand years ago Venus was expelled from the gas giant Jupiter, roamed the solar system as a comet, nearly collided with the Earth around 1500 B.C., and only later settled into its present, highly circular orbit. While subsequent research by other catastrophists has raised questions about certain specifics of Velikovsky's theory, this research has, on the whole, only reinforced Velikovsky's original and most fundamental claim that Venus appeared in historical times as a comet. Velikovsky's thesis concerning Venus' recent birth and cometary past can be tested against considerable evidence gathered since the thesis was first published in 1950. Among other things, it implies that-- contrary to the expectations of astronomers-- the atmosphere of the planet should exhibit evidence of extreme youth. In this paper I will show that a great deal of "surprising" data indicates that Venus' atmosphere is that of a very young planet; in fact, according to previously accepted tests, this atmosphere suggests the planet has been in existence far less than four eons. In 1985 Lawrence Colin stated flatly: "The chemical composition of the air [of Venus remains the most controversial aspect of our knowledge of the Venusian atmosphere." (2) As will be shown, the reason for the controversy is that the data simply do not fit the conventional model.
_ABUNDANCE OF SULPHURIC ACID
_In the course of a decades-long debate, one of the most often-cited arguments raised against Velikovsky has involved the finding that the clouds of Venus are composed of sulphuric acid. Extrapolating from historical sources, Velikovsky himself had anticipated a dominance of hydrocarbons, something which has not found support in the new data. But the more recent discoveries raise entirely new questions. One that has yet to be answered satisfactorily is this: can sulphuric acid remain stable in the atmosphere of Venus over the time required by the usual models of the planet's history? Peter R. Ballinger, a researcher in organic chemistry, raised this question in 1965, when he wrote: It is likely that sulphuric acid would be gradually decomposed by solar radiation of ultraviolet and shorter wavelength, particularly in the presence of iron compounds... to give hydrogen and oxygen. This process would also be expected to result in the preferential retention of deuterium, as discussed in another context... Because of this and and other chemical reactions, sulphuric acid might well have a relatively short lifetime, consistent with a recent installation of the planet in its present orbit. (3) There is indeed iron in the Venusian atmosphere, as reported in Science in 1979. (4) And if the prevailing sulphuric acid model of the clouds is accepted, Venus could not be 4.6 billion years old: solar radiation would have long ago decomposed its sulphuric acid. Hence, the very presence of sulphuric acid is telling evidence of a recently-constituted atmosphere.
_NOT ENOUGH CARBON MONOXIDE
_Ballinger noted in passing that there were "other chemical reactions" indicating the same result, and these too are of significance. It is known that ultraviolet rays break down carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide and oxygen molecules, O 2- Once these molecules of carbon monoxide and O 2 form, they do not recombine again easily. Since Venus' atmosphere is about 97 percent carbon dioxide, one would expect to find a great deal of carbon monoxide and oxygen in the upper and middle atmospheric layers of Venus. This would be so especially if Venus is billions of years old. Thus U. von Zahn et al., emphasised this very problem when they wrote-- The central problem of the photochemistry of Venus' middle atmosphere is to account for the exceedingly low abundance of CO [carbon monoxide and O 2 [molecular oxygen observed at the bottom of the middle atmosphere. In fact, O 2 has not been detected even at 1 ppm [part per million level. Due to low abundance Of O 2 and O 3 [ozone which absorbs ultraviolet radiation solar ultraviolet of sufficient energy to photolyse CO 2 penetrates down to 65 km [or 39 miles above the surface of Venus. The 3-body recombination reaction with a rate constant K b [based on temperature is, however, spin-forbidden. Consequently, at typical temperatures of the Venus middle atmosphere (200K) this [recombination reaction has a very small rate...[But at this temperature oxygen is convened to molecular oxygen...with a rate constant K c which is 5 orders of magnitude higher than K b. Neglecting for a moment the effect of trace gases in Venus' atmosphere, CO 2, CO and O 2 are nonreactive with each other and we therefore expect a fairly rapid transition (on geologic time scales) of the CO 2 atmosphere to one dominated by CO and O 2, CO 2 would disappear from the upper atmosphere within a few weeks and from the entire middle atmosphere in a few thousand years. Indeed these arguments describe the situation correctly for the upper atmosphere of Venus, provided we take account also the various dynamic processes exchanging gas between the upper and middle atmosphere. The above arguments, however, fall short in explaining the composition of the middle atmosphere which at least close to its lower boundary is characterised by an extreme dearth of CO 2 photolysis [break down that is CO and O 2. (5) There is at present no observed or reasonably deduced process to explain this situation. So there is an interesting dilemma for conventional theorists. In order for the abundance of carbon dioxide to persist in the middle atmosphere of Venus, the planet must be only a "few thousand years" old.
_ABSENCE OF WATER
_Velikovsky pointed out long ago that Venus contains practically no water in its atmosphere. Andrew and Louise Young reported in 1975 that studies at radio wave lengths "have established once again that there is no more than .1 or .2 percent water vapour in the lower atmosphere, and the true value is probably close to .01 [l/l00 of a percent. The cloud tops are drier still." (6) But if Venus went through the same early evolution as the Earth billions of years ago, it should have, over time, out-gassed an ocean of water at least comparable to that of the Earth. Young and Young tell us that, "If one assumes that Venus once had as much water as the earth has now, it is necessary to explain how all but one part per million of it was lost. There is a known mechanism by which a planet with abundant water could lose a large portion of it: Water vapour in the upper atmosphere could be dissociated by ultraviolet radiation and the hydrogen could be lost to space, either by thermal escape or through the influence of the solar wind. That effect however could not produce an atmosphere so thoroughly desiccated as Venus' is. Of the water Venus has today, very little reaches the upper atmosphere and therefore it is not dissociated; at the present rate Venus would not have lost a significant amount [of water in the history of the solar system." (7) Venus has either lost water inexplicably, or it has simply not yet had time to generate the abundance of atmospheric and surface water the conventional models would predict (over the assumed billions of years). The presently accepted notion for the development of oceans is the "outgassing hypothesis" presented by W. W. Rubey in 1951. The hypothesis is based on the fact that gases expelled by volcanoes and hot springs contain steam, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and carbon monoxide. It is believed that this process, operating throughout the 4.6 billion year history of the Earth, can account for major atmospheric constituents of the earth. Also, the depth of the oceans would, under this process, steadily increases over the eons. If this is so, even if Venus had lost its first atmosphere and oceans, say 3 or 4 billion years ago (after the first atmosphere and water of the planet were removed by the solar wind and a new atmosphere of carbon dioxide had baked out of the surface rock), then outgassing during the subsequent 3 or 4 billion years would have produced a new ocean of shallower depth. Protected by the new, dense atmosphere, this ocean would not have escaped from the planet. Thus Lawrence Colin tells us: "Overwhelming evidence suggests that in its past Venus had much more water, perhaps as much as the Earth today-- a whole ocean." ( 8 ) The same question is asked by Kelly J. Beatty in an article titled "Venus: the Mystery Continues." Beatty wonders, "Where has all of Venus' water gone? Theorists have asked this question for years. It doesn't make sense to them that a planet so like the earth in size and distance from the sun should have 10,000 to 100,000 times less water. After all, the pair have comparable amounts of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, so the water was probably there at the outset but has somehow disappeared." (9) What ever water Venus possessed was apparently burned off when Venus was a stupendously hot, brilliant comet. The established view, holding that Venus is as old as the Earth, requires enormous amounts of water vapour in its atmosphere. Why, then, is the required water missing? If, as Velikovsky claimed, Venus is a new planet, then it has not had time to outgas sufficient water vapour into the atmosphere and therefore it should have very little, or practically none. In fact, if the amount of Venusian water is one-one hundredth of one percent of Earth's (the "more likely" estimate of Young and Young), then holding that Venus is as old as the Earth, requires enormous amounts of water vapour in its atmosphere. Why, then, is the required water missing? If, as Velikovsky claimed, Venus is a new planet, then it has not had time to outgas sufficient water vapour into the atmosphere and therefore it should have very little, or practically none. In fact, if the amount of Venusian water is one-one hundredth of one percent of Earth's (the "more likely" estimate of Young and Young), then Venus could be no older than 10,000 to 20,000 years.
_MISSING OXYGEN
_An added problem is the dearth of oxygen in Venus' atmosphere, a condition inexplicable under the present view that Venus is an ancient planet. Eric Burgess in his book, Venus an Errant Twin, informs us that the missing oxygen is vital to the question of what happened to the water: "If water molecules were broken down into hydrogen and oxygen, the disappearance of the oxygen has to be explained, since very little of this gas is present in the atmosphere today. No completely satisfactory explanation is yet available for what happened to the oxygen." (10) This particular dilemma is aggravated by the problem of photodissociation of carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide and oxygen discussed earlier, and also by the photodissociation of sulphuric acid into hydrogen and oxygen. If Venus' atmosphere is ancient, photodissociation of water (into oxygen and hydrogen) in conjunction with photodissociation of carbon dioxide (into carbon monoxide and oxygen) and sulphuric acid (into water and hydrogen) should have given Venus an abundant supply of oxygen. However, if Venus is extremely young the absence of oxygen from its atmosphere is fully explained. Perhaps a brief analysis of the evolution of the Earth will make this concept clearer. It is generally held by both geophysicists and biologists that our planet's primitive atmosphere lacked oxygen. The reason is the well known chemical fact that oxygen would have been fatal to any incipient life forms emerging during Earth's early history. Jeremy Rifkin gives this overview of the principle: To begin with, most scientists agree that life could not have formed in an oxygen atmosphere. If the chemicals of life are subjected to an oxidising atmosphere, they will decompose into carbon dioxide, water, and nitrogen. For this reason it has long been assumed that the first precursors of life must have evolved in a reducing [oxygen free atmosphere, since an oxidising atmosphere would have been lethal. (11) From this reasonable principle it follows that, if Venus is a young planet, it should lack appreciable oxygen-- as, in fact, it does. The historical implication is quite clear and points unambiguously to the novel concept first set forth by Velikovsky.
_HYDROCHLORIC AND HYDROFLUORIC ACID
_In his well-known attempts to discredit Velikovsky's theory of a former cometary Venus, Carl Sagan has stated that the sulphuric acid cloud model for Venus, "is consistent with the chemistry of the Venus atmosphere, in which hydrofluoric and hydrochloric acid have also been found." (12) What Sagan did not mention is that these acids, when they react with rocks, are quickly neutralised. Thus these gasses, interacting with new (volcanic) surface rock, should have been completely neutralised over its four to six billion year history. Young and Young report that-- Among the more exotic materials proposed for the clouds only one has been detected spectroscopically. It is hydrogen chloride, and it was found along with hydrogen fluoride by William S. Benedict of the University of Maryland in the spectra reported by the Connesses. Both gases are highly corrosive; when they are dissolved in water, they yield hydrochloric acid and hydrofluoric acid. Their abundance is too low for them to be the clouds, but that they should be present in the atmosphere at all is a surprise. (13) The chart supplied by Young and Young shows hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acid moving to and from the surface of Venus. It is clear, therefore, that these acids interact with the surface rock. The authors go on to say, "Such strong acids could not survive for long in the Earth's atmosphere; they would react with rocks and other materials and soon be neutralized." (14) The amount of water vapour in the Venus atmosphere, though small, is sufficient to convert hydrogen floride and hydrogen chloride into acids. It is therefore assumed ad hoc that the high temperature cooks hydrogen chloride and hydrogen fluoride out of the surface rock. But this theory assumes that these gases would not be neutralised as they formed acids in the rocks. As stated by Young and Young, "A number of assumptions are implicit in this hypothesis: that the rates of chemical reactions at the surface are high, that the atmosphere and the surface are in chemical equilibrium and that the effects of circulation in the atmosphere are small enough to be neglected." (15) Perhaps with enough "ifs" one can fit anything into the gradualist picture of Venus' atmosphere and surface. But if one or more of these ad hoc explanations is incorrect (and out of three variables this is quite probable) then there is no accounting for the existence of these gases in Venus' atmosphere-- apart from the possibility that a very youthful Venus has not had sufficient time to neutralise them. Issues such as noted above must be addressed alongside other considerations pointing in the same direction. Anthony Feldman informs us of a "recent discovery about the composition of the Venusian atmosphere [which has cast doubt on the popular theory accounting for the formation of the solar system." He writes-- The innermost planets-- Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars-- are thought to be small and rocky because the sun drew their light constituents away. If this idea is correct, the closer a planet is to the sun the less likely there is to be lighter gases in the atmosphere. But in the atmosphere of Venus the opposite is true. In particular, there seems to be 500 times as much argon gas and 2700 times as much neon as in the atmosphere of Earth. So far scientists cannot explain why these gases were not drawn away from the planet during the birth of the solar system...Further discoveries about Venus may soon force a revision of the most basic ideas about how the Sun and the planets were formed. (16) Feldman's remarks are specifically corroborated by the finding of argon-36 in Venus' atmosphere. Dr. Michael McElroy, a scientist involved with Pioneer spacecraft exploration of Venus, is quoted in the Washington Post as stating, "The atmosphere of Venus contains as much argon-36 as you would expect from a planet's original atmosphere." (17) Here, then, is another piece of evidence which Velikovsky's critics have let slip under the rug. This evidence-- together with the principles of photodissociation of sulphuric acid and of carbon dioxide, the extreme dearth of water vapour, the extreme dearth of oxygen, and the unneutralised hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acid-- point in unison to the youth of Venus' atmosphere and provide dramatic support for Velikovksy's claim that Venus is a new planet.
_FRESHLY STREWN ROCK
_Yet still other lines of evidence are available. Since Venus is supposedly as ancient as Earth and has an atmosphere of highly corrosive gases, most of its surface rocks should show erosion. Eric Burgess informs us that "the rocks of Venus undergo different types of weathering. Chemical weathering would be expected to decompose olivines, pyroxenes, quartz and feldspars into magnesite, tremolite, dolomite and sulphides and sulphates. Mechanical weathering would be expected to disintegrate rocks by spalding and preferential chemical weathering and possibly by wind erosion. "Although winds on Venus near the surface do not blow at high velocity they represent the movement of extremely dense air by terrestrial standards, sufficiently dense to move particles up to several millimetres diameter across the surface of Venus." (18) Needless to say, these winds, operating over great spans of time, should have drastically eroded surface rock materials and blown the resulting debris into basins, forming vast sand dunes. To the contrary, however, Burgess tells us that "the radar data are...inconsistent with Venus being covered by vast areas of windblown debris." (19) Just how rapidly do the winds blow on Venus? Isaac Asimov explains that on Venus "surface winds were recorded that weren't very fast, only a little over 11 kilometres (7 miles) an hour. Since the atmosphere of Venus is so dense, however, such winds would have the energy of earthly winds blowing at 105 kilometres (65 miles) an hour. The 'gentle' wind is just about equivalent to a hurricane on earth." (20) These winds of Venus are blowing continuously over its entire surface. For an idea of the effects, I ask the reader to imagine terrestrial surface winds blowing day in and day out at 65 miles an hour. Imagine this hurricane blowing for 3 or 4 billion years, remembering also that the gases rushing over the surface rock are highly corrosive. Based on any reasonable, gradualist suppositions, the result would be a global, sandy Sahara! While one might wonder if the absence of sand dunes was in the eye of the beholder, due to poor resolution of the radar pictures, the undeniable state of surface rock was noted in a 1975 Science News article titled "Grand Unveiling of the Rocks of Venus." Here the author described Venera 9 photographs of the surface: The initial photo, apparently taken with the camera looking almost straight down (suggesting that mission officials wanted to ensure at least one picture before moving anything), contains a remarkably clear view of some sharp-edged angular rocks. According to Boris Nepoklonov, one of the mission scientists quoted by the Soviet news agency Tass, 'This seems to knock the bottom out of the existing hypothesis by which the surface was expected to look like a desert covered with sand dunes because of constant wind and temperature erosion.' In fact, he says, 'even the moon does not have such rocks. We thought there couldn't be rocks on Venus-they would all be annihilated by erosion --but here they are, with edges absolutely not blunted. This picture makes us reconsider all our concepts of Venus. (21)
_THE ENERGY PROBLEM
_Nor is there a clear explanation for the tremendous energy that is moving the dense atmosphere. According to Billy P. Glass, "The pressure at the surface [of Venus is approximately 90 bars, which is equivalent to the pressure in the ocean on earth at a depth of nearly 1 km [3,000 feet below sea level." (22) This energy problem ties in with the enigma of Venus' rapid flow pattern of its upper atmosphere. Atmosphere flows on Earth take weeks to circle our planet at the equator. Though Venus rotates much slower (its rotation period is 243 days), its atmospheric cloud-- rising 39 miles above the surface-- flows at 100 m/sec (about 330 feet per second), circling the planet in only 4 to six days. Young and Young thus report: In the earth's atmosphere such winds are encountered only in narrow jet streams. Jet streams could not, however, account for the rapid atmospheric movements observed on Venus, since the Venusian winds seem to involve larger regions of the planet... Theoretical attempts to explain the generation of the winds have produced several possible mechanisms, such as convection caused by the uneven heating of the day and night sides of the planet. None of them, however, have been shown to be capable of explaining velocities greater than a few metres per second. (23) Velikovsky's youthful Venus, however, fits this bizarre atmospheric behaviour remarkably well. Since Venus was a comet-like body, its tail gases and coma atmospheric gases would still have great inertia after Venus entered its orbit, the momentum of its massive tail being transformed into a dense planetary atmosphere. Thus the high velocity still persists in the Venusian upper (lighter) atmosphere, while at the surface, where the atmosphere is most dense, the gases move more slowly.
_TEMPERATURE
_This finally brings us to the oft-discussed matter of Venus' atmospheric temperature. One of the major problems with the "greenhouse" explanation is the process of convection. Stated simply-- hot air rises. Clark R. Chapman explains what is basically wrong with the thinking of the meteorologists who resort to a supposed greenhouse effect to account for the anomalous high temperature of the Venusian atmosphere. It was recently pointed out to embarrassed meteorologists who have debated the relevance of their greenhouse calculations that this effect may not even be important for greenhouses. Outside ground warmed by the sun heats adjacent air, which then floats upward to where the barometric pressure is less. The air parcel expands, cools and settles into equilibrium. Meanwhile at the ground the warmed air is replaced by cooler parcels from above. This process...warms upper regions and keeps the air near the ground from getting too hot. Air on earth begins to convect whenever the temperature begins to drop with altitude more quickly than about 6 degrees C per kilometre [of altitude. So except in an inversion, when the upper air is relatively warm [warmer than the surface air convection maintains the 6 degree C per kilometre profile which is why mountain tops are cool. The reason it is warmer inside than outside a greenhouse is mainly that the [glass roof keeps the warmed-up air inside from floating away {by} is no lid on Venus and the dense carbon dioxide is free to convect. (24) The super hot air of Venus, therefore, must rise and carry away the surface heat of the planet to the upper atmosphere where there is no covering. There the heat will radiate into space. This upward motion or convection of gas by heat will allow it to pass right through the clouds. Hence, the reality is that Venus would convect and radiate its surface heat into space long before its surface reached anything like 750 degrees K. Achieving a relatively high surface temperature for Venus would require a cover encapsulating the entire planet to keep the hot air at the surface from mixing with the cold air of the upper atmosphere. No such mechanism is available, and this simple fact poses an immense problem for the greenhouse theory. The problem becomes fatal when it is discovered that Venus' atmosphere actually rises and expands over the entire surface and then falls and contracts periodically like a pulsating star. A 1973 article in the New Scientist noted the work of four scientists at Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory demonstrating that Venus shows "regular changes in the spectrum of its atmosphere," with marked variations in the carbon dioxide lines on a four-day cycle: Over 20 years ago Gerard Kuiper noted day-to-day fluctuations in the infrared spectrum of Venus, but no one has yet got to the bottom of the basic cause of these changes. In order to study the oscillations A.T., L.G., and J.W. Young and J. I Gerstrahl obtained spectra nightly during the autumn of last year [1972. Their data on the carbon dioxide line show an unmistakable oscillation. The observed variation is not exactly periodic, but more akin to a relaxation oscillation in which the amplitude builds up on successive cycles and then suddenly collapses. In order to produce the observed changes the cloud deck of Venus must be moving up and down by as much as one kilometre, simultaneously over the entire surface of the planet. Such a large atmosphere oscillation requires a high input of mechanical energy. This condition is difficult to account for in the case of a slowly rotating planet heated uniformly by the Sun's rays [Greenhouse effect. Therefore the cycle variations point to some unexplained deep-seated property of the atmospheric dynamics." (25) Gases expand when heated and contract when cooled. What is very apparent is that the surface heat is building up so strongly that it cannot be convected away as rapidly as it builds up. The superhot air therefore expands and rises, pushing the layers above it which also expand and rise. This process goes on until the upper air layers have risen sufficiently high to permit heat to dissipate more rapidly in the freezing altitudes of space, following which the entire atmosphere contracts to repeat the process. The amount of energy required to accomplish such a feat is far greater than could be produced by any "greenhouse" that lacks a cover! It is thus impossible to reconcile the observed condition with a thermally balanced atmosphere: an ancient planet would have achieved a thermal equilibrium long ago. Hence, the fact that the Venusian atmosphere is not in equilibrium makes the "greenhouse" effect a charade and points to the same conclusion as the other considerations reviewed above. In sum, the evidence we have presented regarding Venus' atmosphere disputes the uniformitarian view that Venus is an ancient member of the solar system; in every instance, however, this evidence is completely en rapport with Velikovsky's view that Venus is a newcomer to the planetary system.
_References
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Re: Mathis on Velikovsky +
« Reply #2 on: December 24, 2018, 05:57:17 pm »
The Nature of Venus' Heat [The Velikovskian]
... From: The Velikovskian Vol 1 No 3 (1993)

The Nature of Venus' Heat, Charles Ginenthal
_Ever since 1956, when the American team of radio astronomers from the U.S. Naval Research laboratory, headed by Cornell H. Meyer, discovered that "the surface of Venus is hot --far hotter than anyone had previously imagined," (1) (Emphasis added.) which fits Immanuel Velikovsky's hypothesis that Venus was a newborn planet in the early cool-down stages of its development, the scientific community --and, in particular, the astronomers --sought a non-Velikovskian, non-catastrophist explanation for this surprising finding. It was and still is unthinkable to these upholders of a stable solar system that Venus could be a recently born, newly acquired member of the solar system's family. Ultimately, the only other explanation for the planet's high temperature was the hypothesis that Venus was in the grip of a runaway greenhouse effect. The early greenhouse model was promoted by Carl Sagan in 1960 and 1962. (2)
_In 1970, S. I. Rasool and C. de Bergh added the "runaway" aspect to the model. (3) Thus, the runaway greenhouse theory was born and was expected to explain the high temperature of Venus by straightforward uniformitarian processes. This model worked its way into both scientific thought and nearly every astronomy textbook, becoming the only other theory about Venus' high temperature besides the catastrophist model presented by Velikovsky, in spite of the fact that 20 years after the runaway greenhouse model was proposed, Werhner von Braun openly admitted that "scientists would like to be sure that the greenhouse effect is indeed the cause of the hot surface and lower atmosphere [of Venus. So far it is only a theory not yet proven by experiment." (4)
_In the ensuing years, Soviet and American space probes to Venus measured and collected evidence which has been used by greenhouse advocates to show that Venus is heated by a runaway greenhouse effect and that Velikovsky and his followers are gravely mistaken to have imagined otherwise regarding its high thermal emission. Nevertheless, with respect to Venus' high temperature, I will show that the evidence clearly contradicts the runaway greenhouse theory and is fully congruent with Velikovsky's concept that Venus is a newborn planet still shedding its primordial heat. I will show that, on many levels, evidence investigated and proposed as supportive by the greenhouse advocates is, at best, extremely weak and often contradicts the underlying assumptions. The runaway greenhouse model is, fundamentally, in direct opposition to physics, observations, measurements and the historical theory of planetary formation, which is one of the cornerstones of science's uniformitarian thinking. The reader will be able to understand how impoverished the claimed evidence for the runaway greenhouse theory is, how deeply flawed the case for the runaway greenhouse mechanism is, upon examination, and how it, in effect, strengthens Velikovsky's theory: that Venus' heat is derived from its interior.
_THE ORIGIN OF VENUS' GREENHOUSE
_A scientific theory that purports to explain Venus' high temperature must also explain how and why the process began. David Morrison and Tobias Owen explain the origin of Venus' runaway greenhouse: The runaway greenhouse is a process through which a planet can fundamentally alter the state of its surface and atmosphere. Imagine what would happen if we could move the Earth into the orbit of Venus. Our planet would suddenly be closer to the Sun at 72% of its present distance. Sunlight would [deliver about twice as much energy to every square meter of the Earth's surface. Most of the Earth is covered by oceans, so the immediate result would be an increase in [their temperatures....The increase in temperature would lead to increased evaporation. More water vapor would be present in the atmosphere, which would trap more infrared radiation from the Earth's surface. In other words, we would have increased the greenhouse effect. This, in turn, leads to a further increase in the planet's surface temperature, resulting in more evaporation of water and a continuation of the cycle. We have established a positive feedback loop, in which the initial disturbance --increasing the Earth's surface temperature --produces consequences which lead to an enhancement of that disturbance! The cycle continues until the oceans literally boil away and all water is converted to vapor, [producing an exceedingly hot atmosphere. This is the runaway greenhouse effect. (5)
_This is the concept that must stand up to the evidence. What Morrison and Owen have omitted from their discussion is the nature of stellar evolution. They have analyzed the behavior of ancient Venus in its early evolution by invoking the present heat of the Sun upon Venus. Venus must be analyzed with respect to the Sun as the Sun actually existed in its early evolutionary development. Once done, an entirely different picture emerges with respect to this process. Zdenek Kopal makes this clear: The entire argument defended by some planetologists [regarding the origin of the greenhouse effect contains one fatal flaw --an implicit assumption that, in the early days of the solar system, the youthful Sun was as bright as it is now. Actually, as a zero-age [new Main Sequence star, our Sun should have been approximately 40% less luminous than we see it today and its surface temperature 10% lower. Venus is 28% closer to the Sun than [the Earth is and any element of its surface receives almost twice as much heat as we do on the Earth. Even so, the early climactic conditions on Venus could not have been much warmer than they are in the terrestrial tropics today, and, had there once been oceans on Venus, very little of their waters could have evaporated. Therefore, we are back where we started. (6)
_The greenhouse theorists are well aware of this problem. What is their explanation? James B. Pollack, Sagan's former pupil and, later, collaborator says: Over the age of the solar system...the Sun's total luminosity...increases by several tens of percent --a long-term trend that would have induced dramatic changes in the climates of the terrestrial planets.... [This suggests that Venus' surface temperature was just on the borderline of not being in a runaway state in the early solar system, when the Sun's total energy output was [25% to 30% less than it is today. The likelihood that Venus had oceans in its early history, (albeit) hot ones, improves further when the possible effect of water clouds are considered. Clouds reflect sunlight back to space better than they trap thermal radiation, so early Venus may have experienced a "moist" greenhouse (hot oceans) rather than a runaway greenhouse (no oceans) [vaporized oceans. (7) (Emphasis added.)
_The reader will notice two things: Pollack says the Sun's temperature was "several tens of percent" cooler than at present, but uses figures of 25% to 30% less than present, while Kopal uses 40% less luminosity. Pollack also admits that clouds would tend to cool Venus, but, on page 101 of his book, tells us that his analysis was based on Venus having "cloudless skies." Thus, with cloud cover over Venus, its temperature would be even cooler than Pollack has computed. It would be below the threshold of a "moist" greenhouse. Significantly, his statement that "early Venus may have experienced a `moist' greenhouse" is tantamount to an admission that it may not have had a moist greenhouse. James E. Oberg tells us that Pollack does not believe Venus had an early, runaway greenhouse effect. He states that, "[ according to Dr. James Pollack, any guesses about the early climate of Venus depend strongly on what kind of atmosphere the planet possessed." ( 8 )
_Taking into account the 30% lower solar brightness, computations show that a reasonable atmosphere on Venus would have led to "` quite moderate temperatures' for more than a billion years ...." (9) This means that Venus had a moderate climate for a billion years or more and then started its runaway greenhouse effect. Let us, nevertheless, allow the assumption that the Sun, in its early history or thereafter, was just sufficiently hot so as to generate a greenhouse effect on Venus. What must follow? Morrison and Owen explain: At this point, the atmosphere is so hot that water vapor can easily rise to great heights, where it becomes exposed to solar ultraviolet light. This is a crucial step. On Earth, water is protected by the natural cold trap in the atmosphere. The air at the top of the troposphere is so cold that water cannot diffuse upward to levels where it could be attacked by ultraviolet light. A runaway greenhouse can raise the temperature throughout the lower atmosphere, giving water free access to high altitudes. Because of the large mass of Venus, only the light hydrogen atoms escape into space. The oxygen remains behind to combine with rocks on the planet's surface and with other gases that have been produced by the intense heating. The runaway greenhouse leads to elimination of water from the planet in a perfectly natural way....Quantitative studies of this phenomenon indicate that water simply cannot remain on the surface of a planet at [Venus' distance from the Sun. (10)
_The escape of hydrogen from the H 2 O molecule into space is fundamental to all concepts for the removal of water from Venus' atmosphere. Thomas M. Donahue and James B. Pollack state this explicitly: "A common feature of all...[water loss mechanisms is the implicit requirement that molecular hydrogen readily escape. Otherwise, they would be incompatible with the trace amount of molecular hydrogen that characterizes Venus' current atmosphere of, at most, 10 ppm v/v." (11) The problem of ridding Venus of its photodissociated hydrogen is far from simple, due to the cold nature of Venus' exosphere. An exosphere is the upper region of an atmosphere which has become so thin that atoms and molecules rarely, if ever, collide. From here, hydrogen must escape from Venus into space. Sagan explains that, "[ if the exosphere temperature is very high, then the rate of escape of a planetary atmosphere would be very high." (12)
_What happens to molecules in an extremely cold atmosphere? On Earth, the temperature of the exosphere is between 950 K [degrees Kelvin to 1,050 K, while the exosphere of Venus is about 285 K, or 665 K cooler. On Earth, the temperature of the upper atmosphere becomes hot; part of this region is called a thermosphere, or hot atmosphere; however, on Venus, the temperature of the upper atmosphere falls with altitude and is thus called a cryosphere, or cold atmosphere. William K. Hartmann states: The H 2 O [water is too heavy to escape thermally in the lifetime of the solar system. Thermal escape of H [hydrogen produced by photodissociation of the H 2 O was thought to have caused the loss of H 2 O from Venus. However, Pioneer discovered the [285 K exosphere temperature and calculations show that the [hydrogen escape time from such an exosphere is 20 Gy [20 giga, or billion, years. So how could H, and, hence, H 2 O, have been depleted? If the exosphere had once been heated to 1,000 K or so, the [hydrogen escape time could be brought to a tiny fraction of the age of the solar system. In any case, Pioneer scientists (Stewart A. [et al, 1979 "Ultraviolet Spectroscopy of Venus: Initial Results from the Pioneer Venus Orbiter," Science 203, p. 777) concluded, "If Venus ever possessed a large amount of water, it cannot have lost it by escape mechanisms known to be operating now." (13)
_The results, when more fully analyzed, showed that the hydrogen loss rate is presently only about 10 7 H cm -2s-1 (ten million hydrogen molecules per one hundredth of a centimeter per second squared). (14) "At this rate," Donahue and Pollack explain, "only...[about 9 meters [30 feet of water could be eliminated from Venus over its lifetime." (15) In order to generate a greenhouse effect on a body as large as Venus, it becomes apparent that a great amount of water, or of some other material, must be vaporized in its atmosphere to create a greenhouse powerful enough to literally cook the planet's carbon dioxide out of its surface rock. But Pollack has also told us that the early solar radiation would, if Venus had an ocean, produce only a moist greenhouse, or a very moderate one at best. Thirty feet, or so, of water on Venus will produce thousands of lakes similar to those on the Earth. Most of Venus' surface would be land and the moist or moderate greenhouse that Pollack proposes under these conditions means no greenhouse, because Venus had no oceans. The nightside of the planet's land surface would quickly cool and the lost heat derived from the dayside by convection would keep the planet cool, so that no runaway greenhouse could get started. In the same way that Pollack assumed that the Sun must be just sufficiently hot on ancient Venus so as to start the greenhouse mechanism, he and the other advocates of this heat phenomenon must also assume that the escape rate of hydrogen from Venus in the early solar system was immensely greater than at present. This is stated by Pollack: "[ It will be assumed that hydrogen can readily escape to space, although, as we have seen, this remains to be demonstrated." (16) (Emphasis added.)
_Furthermore, one cannot remove the remaining water of an ocean by having it form hydrate compounds with surface materials. Under such circumstances over time, the water would be recycled volcanically back into Venus' atmosphere. So far, two assumptions have been put forth to establish the credibility of the origin of the greenhouse effect. The first assumption posits that the Sun was just hot enough to heat Venus' oceans. The second assumption posits that an escape mechanism, shown by the data to contradict the hydrogen removal processes for escape into space, is wrong. What must be pointed out is that a newborn planet would be born with little or no water. Zdenek Kopal makes this clear: "We are fairly sure that the newly-formed Earth contained no water on its surface. It was born dry and its oceans have since been exuded from the interior by thermal `cracking' [heat removal of water of the hydrates [water-bearing minerals." (17) Absolutely no assumption must be made regarding the lack of water in newborn Venus' atmosphere. If Venus is a newborn planet, as Velikovsky claimed, its lack of water is completely in harmony with its present waterless condition.
_The other problem related to the photodissociation of water and the escape of hydrogen is, Where did the residual oxygen go that cannot escape into space? After an entire planet's ocean rose into the upper regions of Venus' atmosphere and was dissociated by ultraviolet light from which hydrogen escaped, the planet was left with a lot of oxygen. Morrison and Owen have informed us that "[ the oxygen remained behind to combine with the rocks on the planet's surface." (18) Billy P. Glass addresses the same question, asking, "[ Where is the oxygen? Pioneer Venus probes only detected 70 ppm [parts per million oxygen in the lower atmosphere. Some of the oxygen to account for a vanished `ocean' of water would require that several kilometers of rock be oxidized. This would require an extremely geologically active planet." (19) Most scientists are skeptical that early Venus had, for its first billion years of existence, immense volcanic activity. On the Earth, it took an exceedingly long time before enough water was vented volcanically from the interior prior to ocean formation. The same is also expected for Venus. In this respect, Venus would have had to exude its water vapor more rapidly and much earlier than the Earth, so as to allow its oxygen to unite with molten surface material. In fact, there is no such scenario to suggest that, after the Earth formed oceans on its surface, the crust --for some inexplicable reason --began to ooze giant flows of lava. Hence, this is also a problem needing explanation.
_Barrie William Jones deals with this question, saying that oxygen would not escape to space in appreciable quantities, and so [the combination [of oxygen with surface materials provides the only repository. However, it is difficult to believe that sufficient quantities of suitable substances could have appeared at the cytherean [Venusian surface to mop up anywhere near the amount of water. Indeed, chemical evidence from the sulfur-bearing gases in the lower atmosphere of Venus...indicate that the surface rock today does not contain the maximum amount of oxygen possible. (20) The germane question is, How much crustal rock material must be exuded as molten lava to mop up the residual oxygen of a planet's oceans? What must be emphasized is that this turning over of Venus' surface crustal material had to occur over a billion years or more after the planet cooled and its crust had become solid. According to Oberg, "Pollack suggests that `runaway conditions were not reached on Venus until halfway through its history.'" (21) J. Kelly Beatty tells us that to remove all of Venus' atmospheric oxygen, as suggested, requires no less than "remnant oxygen combined [with materials to a depth of perhaps 450 kilometers" (22) [279 miles. Such a depth of volcanic turnover is simply not believable. It would require that, after Venus formed a crust like that of the early Earth and outgassed an ocean of water, the entire crust and mantle remelted to a depth of 280 miles, or 451 kilometers. But even at a depth of 100 miles, or 161 kilometers, of melt, there is no geological method presently known that would remelt the entire surface of a planet that much, particularly that of a planet believed to have a similar, early geological history as that of the Earth. What is required is based on a uniformitarian geology that is impossible. The entire concept lacks support.
_James Oberg deals with a similar problem --getting rid of all the oxygen in Venus' present atmosphere --and concludes that this concept simply will not work: Imagine that all the carbon dioxide [CO 2 could be converted, in the wink of an eye, into free oxygen and carbon soot [as Morrison, Owen and others suggest happened to H 2 O on ancient Venus. Now, instead of 90 bars of carbon dioxide, we have only 60 bars of free oxygen, still three hundred times as much as on Earth. To get rid of it, we may try to lock it up in surface rocks (the hotter the rocks, the faster the reaction); but calculations show that the mass of rock needed to absorb that excess mass of oxygen (assuming even that the rock was not already partially or, even, predominantly oxidized) would cover the planet to a depth of 100 kilometers [62 miles or more. That means that the top 100 kilometers of the surface of the entire planet would have to be gardened [turned over or selectively exposed to air so as to absorb the oxygen. On Earth, this process is accomplished by water erosion of mountains raised by tectonism over eons of geologic time. Something different would be needed on Venus. (23) To remove an ocean's oxygen content from Venus by ordinary volcanic processes would take much longer than the lifetime of the solar system. There is no uniformitarian process by which to rid Venus of an ocean! Without water turned to stupendously hot vapor, how does one cook the carbon dioxide which had formed carbonates out of the Venusian crust?!
_Some greenhouse advocates claim that the heating of Venus' crust and mantle to a great depth would, nevertheless, release an enormous amount of carbon monoxide. If the oxygen in the atmosphere united with this additional carbon monoxide as well as with surface materials, it would generate much of the carbon dioxide presently found on Venus. However, Beatty explains that "[ excess oxygen probably combined with carbon monoxide driven from the interior, although University of Michigan's Thomas Donahue admits it would take a `stochastic miracle' [a highly improbable set of conditions to match the gases [oxygen with carbon monoxide easily." (24) If this process actually occurred, there would be, in overwhelming probability, a large, noticeable amount of either excess oxygen or carbon monoxide in Venus' atmosphere. This, of course, is not the case. The geophysical processes employed by the astronomers to remove Venus' atmospheric oxygen are either impossible or generally implausible or require a stochastic miracle. In this respect, Donahue and Pollack admit that "[ even if a vigorous recycling of crustal material did occur in Venus' past, the incorporation of water into the subducted material is not assured." (25) This means that, even with plate tectonic crustal movement, the water on Venus would probably still remain on the surface. According to Eric Burgess, "[ no completely satisfactory explanation is yet available for what happened to the [Venusian oxygen." (26)
_Let us assume that Venus did have an ocean. In recent articles, some astronomers claim that they can see the region where Venus' ocean lay. J. Kelly Beatty explains what would be left of the Venusian topography after an ocean became vapor: Venus receives twice the sunlight we do, enough to have converted all its oceans to vapor --the equivalent of 250-300 bars of atmosphere on top of its 90 bars of carbon dioxide. At that point, the greenhouse effect would have run rampant; calculations show the surface temperature would reach 1,500 K. Venus' surface melted its lithosphere transformed [to lava into a churning cauldron that continuously exposed fresh magma to its atmosphere. (27) Simply melting the upper layer of surface rock would not churn 280 miles, or 451 kilometers, of material. What would happen, however, is that all ocean basins and continents would flatten at the surface and neither the original oceanic basins nor the continents could survive.
_Modern astronomers are grasping at straws to suggest that they can locate the original ocean basins on Venus. As far as I know, the greatest problem involved in the removal of Venusian oxygen, ozone formation, is never discussed by greenhouse theorists. This problem is ignored every time one of the greenhouse advocates discusses ultraviolet photodissociation of water molecules in Venus' high atmosphere. Morrison and Owen had told us that the origin of the greenhouse effect requires "the atmosphere...[to become so hot that water vapor can easily rise to great heights where it becomes exposed to solar ultraviolet light." (28) Of course, greenhouse advocates tell us that ultraviolet radiation will photodissociate water into oxygen and hydrogen. What these same advocates fail to tell us is that ultraviolet light, in Venus' high atmosphere, must generate ozone! And every astronomer knows this simple fact. Morrison and Owen state: In the upper part of the stratosphere [of Earth, the absorption of solar ultraviolet light creates a layer of ozone (O 3 ), an unusual form of oxygen with three atoms per molecule instead of two. The ozone layer, sometimes called the ozonosphere, extends from approximately 20 [kilometers to 50 kilometers [12 miles to 31 miles. Without it, solar ultraviolet light would penetrate to the surface. (29) Valentin A. Firsoff focused on the nub of the entire problem as long ago as 1973: The mechanism by which Venus is supposed to have lost its water is... unconvincing. [Water may be dissociated to hydrogen and oxygen by the short [wave ultraviolet, the former [hydrogen escaping to space. But the oxygen will not be lost. The formaldehyde reaction: CO 2+ H 2 O= H+ CHO+ O 2, also mediated by the ultraviolet, should further contribute to the supply of atmospheric oxygen while radiation below 160Å [160 Angstroms dissociates CO 2. Thus, by any reckoning, free oxygen should have evolved in the [Venusian atmosphere, which would shelter [water against further dissociation even if there had been no clouds and no cold trap to keep it in the lower atmosphere. (30) One simply cannot expect to photodissociate an immense amount of water vapor into hydrogen and oxygen without creating an ozonosphere. Once the ozonosphere forms, it stops the dissociation of water vapor dead in its tracks and whatever water remained in Venus' atmosphere or oceans could never be further dissociated by ultraviolet because ozone has stopped the "feedback loop." Based on this evidence, Venus would have lost very little water. There is no way around this problem. That is probably why it is evaded.
_What scientists have done is play a game of hide-and-seek with ultraviolet radiation processes. Ultraviolet is invoked to dissociate water into hydrogen and oxygen. This is the process in which ultraviolet is scientifically observed. The fact that oxygen, acted upon by ultraviolet, generates ozone is kept hidden, conveniently ignored. In order to make the oceans of Venus disappear, greenhouse theorists must deny the reality of a well-known scientific process. Morrison and Owen state that [the most important cloud-forming process on Venus is probably photochemistry, chemical reactions driven by the energy of ultraviolet sunlight. Photochemical reactions are important in the upper atmosphere of planets, including the Earth, where the production of ozone from oxygen is an example of a photochemical process. (31) But there is never any discussion of the photochemical formation of ozone from an ocean of oxygen in the early Venus atmosphere. Why does ultraviolet dissociate water in Venus' atmosphere but somehow fail to generate ozone? As far as I know, neither Morrison, Owen, nor anyone else has addressed this question. When discussing Mars, Eric Burgess points out that Firsoff's analysis regarding an ozonosphere's ability to halt the escape of oxygen is quite correct: "[ A fairly dense atmosphere of oxygen might have accumulated on Mars in a period of a million years....Incoming solar ultraviolet radiation would have further restricted the escape of oxygen into space." (32) If ozone restricts the escape of oxygen on Mars, of course, it will do precisely the same on Venus.
_This phenomenon of a lack of oxygen or ozone on ancient Venus is unexplained by the runaway greenhouse effect and is further evidence in support of Velikovsky's theory. What must be pointed out is that, as a newborn planet, Venus would be expected to possess little or no oxygen and, therefore, no ozonosphere. This is clarified by L. V. Berkner and L. C. Marshall in their paper, "The History and Growth of Oxygen in the Earth's Atmosphere": The absence of a significant content of oxygen in the primitive secondary atmosphere is confirmed by several lines of evidence. First, there is no suitable source....Second, the incomplete oxidation [oxygen joined with other substances of early sedimentary materials [on Earth (three billion years of age) as demonstrated Raukama, Ramdohr, Lepp and Goldich, and others...suggests very early lithospheric [crustal sedimentation in a reducing [oxygen-free atmosphere....Finally, the rapidly growing evidence on the origin of life on planet Earth appears to forbid significant oxygen concentration. (33) Absolutely no specialized process must be invoked regarding the lack of oxygen in Venus' atmosphere, based on Velikovsky's hypothesis. Barrie William Jones has said that there is no indication that the surface rock is saturated with oxygen. Thus, the lack of water and oxygen on Venus is evidence one would expect to find on a newborn planet and is in full harmony with Velikovsky's concept.
_Nevertheless, one may raise the argument that we don't need water at all in Venus' atmosphere. Venus was simply born without it, or very little of it, and that solves the problem. Oberg states: Alternately, of course, the ocean theory may be completely wrong, and Venus may never have had much water. The oceans may never have had much water. Different theories of solar system formation can give different ratios of Venusian water to terrestrial water. The ocean may never have been there, or the temperatures may always have been too high (but then another agent for high temperatures would have had to be invented). (34) But this suggestion is not a solution. If there was no water in Venus' ancient atmosphere, how does the planet start the greenhouse effect? One needs either water or an inordinate amount of some gas to hold sufficient heat to cook the carbon dioxide out of the surface rock. Methane does that job well. But methane is a light gas, like water vapor, and, if Venus was endowed with methane, it would also have been endowed with water. Furthermore, astronomers do not seriously suggest that the two planets, Earth and Venus, situated so close to each other in the inner solar system, created from the same processes, would have totally different inventories of water. Morrison and Owen state that "if all the carbon [of the Earth were put back into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide, the atmosphere would have a pressure of about 70 bars [70 times more pressure than at present and a composition [consisting of more than 98% carbon dioxide and little more than 1% nitrogen." (35) According to Pollack, Venus' 90 bar atmosphere is 96% carbon dioxide and 3.5% nitrogen. (36)
_Pollack also states that "[ when all these reservoirs [of gases are taken into account, we find that Earth and Venus have very comparable amounts of [carbon and [nitrogen. This similarity implies that the two planets initially had comparable amounts of water." (37) He concludes that, "[ regardless of the sources, these worlds [terrestrial planets obtained comparable initial endowments of volatiles. Specially in the cases of Earth and Venus." (38) There is no reason to argue whether or not Venus lacked water based on all geophysical concepts. To do so is to negate the fundamental theories of solar system formation. Oberg adds these telling remarks: Even with great amounts of carbon dioxide, Venus could have a moderate climate if water was in short supply but present in enough amounts to form pools within which carbonate rocks could be formed to absorb some carbon dioxide. The addition of off-planet substances in trace amounts (Pollack suggests "collisions with volatile-rich comets and asteroids") may also have had catastrophic climactic effects by blocking off hitherto open "windows" in the "greenhouse effect." (39) In essence, no natural processes, using Venus' gases alone, would lead to a runaway greenhouse effect. Pollack was finally forced to invent additional gases from the ad hoc concept that comets or asteroids must have brought these additional constituents. But this simply will not do! All theories of planetary formation suggest that the early planetesimals that formed the planets were made of comets and asteroids. So the same materials had to exist inside the planets Earth and Venus.
_This being the case, for Venus to start a greenhouse, some other gas or gases must be invoked. And this is precisely what Carl Sagan has been attempting to do. To save the process, he has sought some other gas to enhance the action of water vapor. According to Pollack: Sagan and George Mullen have suggested that as little as 10 parts per million of ammonia (NH 3) may have produced the desired greenhouse enhancement. However, practically no ammonia should have been outgassed by volcanoes into the early atmosphere. Moreover, NH 3 is easily broken down by ultraviolet radiation into nitrogen and hydrogen, and it is very difficult to recombine these two back into the parent molecule. Therefore, ammonia is probably not the agent involved in the early greenhouse enhancement. (40) It has been more than 30 years since the greenhouse effect arose as an explanation for Venus' high temperature. For over 30 years, the scientists who have diligently worked on this mechanism have failed to find a valid process that will get it started. In order to begin the phenomenon, they have had to turn to exotic enhancement gases that are not believed to have existed in the early atmosphere of Venus and that cannot survive for very long in the presence of ultraviolet light.
_When a theory is correct, over time, it finds suitable answers and the various problems and questions begin to be resolved, each element falling into place. This is not the case with the evidence regarding the runaway greenhouse effect. Its origin is still widely unknown and highly problematic. Its advocates are seeking new gases to enhance water vapor and suggest that the entire crust of the planet somehow remelted long after it solidified so as to remove its oxygen. Its supporters have stubbornly failed to come to grips with Firsoff's objection regarding the formation of an ozonosphere. These theorists don't even know if the early Sun was hot enough to start such a process and simply wave their hands in order to make hydrogen escape the planet rapidly. None of their processes have been validated in any way other than by taking theoretical assumptions as facts. As stated earlier, a phenomenon like the greenhouse effect has to have an origin. If there is no origin for a theoretical concept, it becomes exceedingly difficult to accept the hypothesis that is proposed. This is the case for the runaway greenhouse effect on Venus: No beginning, no greenhouse. Nevertheless, its advocates suggest that, since the process is ongoing, we simply have to assume that our knowledge of the precise ancient history of planetology is flawed; and, even with these difficulties, we can see Venus today in the full throes of a runaway greenhouse effect. That the early history of the solar system is nebulous is a reasonable, cautious suggestion, but before passing such a favorable judgement on this heating mechanism, one must be able to demonstrate, fully, that Venus is in the midst of a runaway greenhouse effect. The question in this instance is, Does the evidence fully support this conclusion? Let us investigate this claim, remembering Werhner von Braun's admonition regarding the greenhouse model: "So far, it is only a theory not yet proven by experiment." (41) What is the evidence for a runaway greenhouse effect on Venus?
_EVIDENCE OF A VENUSIAN GREENHOUSE?
_Morrison and Owen explain how the greenhouse effect works: Why is Venus hot? The answer comes from a phenomenon known as the greenhouse effect....In a typical greenhouse, the glass in the roof allows visible sunlight to enter and be absorbed by the plants and soil within. These objects then heat up and radiate at infrared wavelengths just like the Earth itself. The glass of a greenhouse, however, is largely opaque to infrared radiation. It acts as a color filter, letting short wavelengths [of sunlight in through [the glass, but limiting passage of longer wave [infrared thermal radiation [out. Since most of the heat cannot escape the interior of the greenhouse, it warms the glass to balance the energy coming in. A similar effect occurs in a car left out in the Sun on a hot day.... The gases in a planet's atmosphere can play the same role as the glass in a greenhouse, if they have the same property of transparency to visible light and opacity to infrared. (42) Therefore, one would expect that the gases in Venus' atmosphere can act as does the glass in the greenhouse, but, more importantly, that these gases are found in sufficient quantities to permit short-wave sunlight to pass through them, then act to block infrared thermal radiation from escaping. When discussing the composition of the constituents of Venus' atmosphere, I pointed out that the components of Venus' atmosphere were carbon dioxide, which comprises 96%, and nitrogen, which comprises 3.5%, with other gases making up the rest of Venus' inventory. The greenhouse theorists insist that the three component gases for their greenhouse model are carbon dioxide, water vapor and sulfur dioxide. And, indeed, there can be no doubt that there is sufficient carbon dioxide to carry out this greenhouse function. However, carbon dioxide, even in the abundance found on Venus, will not produce the opacity necessary to generate a runaway greenhouse. According to Barrie William Jones: efficient trapping [of heat cannot be produced by CO 2 [carbon dioxide alone, in spite of the enormous mass of CO 2 in the Venusian atmosphere. This is because CO 2 is fairly transparent over certain [short wavelengths [to escape in infrared, thermal wavelength ranges [and to [escape in planetary [infrared wavelengths. Radiation could escape through these "windows" in sufficient quantities [so as to greatly reduce the greenhouse effect below that which [presently exists....[Additional...windows [closed by SO 2 [sulfur dioxide and H 2 O, and by the clouds [and hazes, [are what greatly increases the greenhouse effect. (43) Carbon dioxide needs the assistance of water vapor, sulfur dioxide, clouds and hazes to complete the job that it began. Of significance, then, is the contribution each of these gases makes to the greenhouse effect. Gary Hunt and Patrick Moore have outlined these contributions: CO 2 is responsible for about 55% of the trapped heat [in Venus' atmosphere. A further 25% is due to the presence of water vapor, while SO 2, which constitutes only 0.02 [2/100 of a percent of the atmosphere, traps 5% of the remaining infrared radiation. The remaining 15% is due to the clouds and hazes which surround the planet. (44) Let us examine the closing of windows with respect to the amount of hazes, clouds and sulfur dioxide in Venus' atmosphere. These constituents are responsible for shutting off the escape of 20% of the thermal radiation left open by carbon dioxide and water vapor. According to Larry W. Esposito, Pioneer Venus has continued to monitor these constituents [haze and sulfur dioxide above the clouds. Over the years, a remarkable discovery has emerged: Both the sulfur dioxide and the haze have been gradually disappearing. By now, only about 10% of the 1978 amount remains. This disappearance has also been confirmed by the Earth-orbiting International Ultraviolet Explorer [satellite between 1979 and 1987 and by other Earth-based observations. The haze and the sulfur dioxide are now approaching their pre-1978 values. Analysis of recent Earth-based radio observations, by Paul Steffes and his colleagues, [also shows less sulfur dioxide below the clouds. [Emphasis added than was measured by Pioneer Venus and Venera landers, which is also consistent with the decrease of sulfur dioxide. (45) Pollack concurs with this observation: "Measurements by the Pioneer Venus orbiter show that the amount of sulfur dioxide present near the cloud tops declined from approximately 200 parts per billion (ppb) in 1978 to about 10 [parts per billion...in 1986." (46) Morrison and Owen also concur, stating that "[ observations over the past [20 years have indicated that large fluctuations occur in the concentration of sulfur dioxide (SO 2) in the atmosphere of Venus above the clouds." (47) The proponents of the greenhouse effect admit that the components responsible for 20% of the opacity of sulfur dioxide and hazes decline by up to 90% above the clouds and, to some lesser percentage, below the clouds. If the levels of the hazes and sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere fall to significantly lower concentrations above, as well as below, the clouds from their former levels, they cannot act as influentially to block the entire 20% of the greenhouse windows. This evidence could be a blow to the runaway aspect of the greenhouse effect. Consider the suggestion that particles in the clouds also act as does the glass in a greenhouse. These particles are either liquid droplets or tiny, solid particles. Therefore, the composition of the Venusian clouds ought to be known, so as to determine how influential these particles are in blocking heat escape. Greenhouse advocates believe that they know the composition of the clouds and use that assumption in their calculations. According to A. Seiff, "Pollack and Young (1975) assumed 75% H 2 SO 4 [sulfuric acid clouds." (48) This is, indeed, the conclusion Carl Sagan proposed when he said: Moreover, the question of the composition of the Venus clouds --a major enigma for centuries --has recently been solved (Young and Young, 1973; Sill, 1972; Young, 1973; Pollack et al., 1974). The clouds of Venus are composed of approximately 75% solution of sulfuric acid. This identification is consistent with the chemistry of the Venus atmosphere, in which hydrofluoric and hydrochloric acid have also been found; with the real part of the refractive index deduced from polarimetry, which is known to three significant figures (1.44), with the 11.2 (and now far infrared) absorption features; and with the discontinuity in the abundance of water vapor above and below the clouds. (49) This statement by Sagan, for all its impressive spectroscopic, analytical evidence, is disingenuous to say the least. Zdenek Kopal explains why: The reader should, however, be encouraged not to take these current cosmochemical scenarios as gospel truth. Although the sulfuric acid hypothesis accounts satisfactorily for many optical properties of the clouds surrounding Venus, it cannot explain one important property --the yellowish colors of the planet. The color must be produced by some substance that absorbs in the blue and ultraviolet regions of the spectrum. Sulfuric acid does not meet the requirement, nor does any other likely substance which could be considered in this connection. (50) Oberg admits, "The light yellow clouds seen from Earth are almost certainly droplets of sulfuric acid....The actual cause of the yellow tinge and the variable ultraviolet absorption is still unexplained." (51) But this assertion proves nothing. It is merely an attempt to evade facing the implication that the yellow tinge of the clouds denies that they are sulfuric acid in composition. Jones further explains: Detailed studies, mainly by spacecraft, have revealed the existence of at least three types of cloud particles. First, there are the tiny particles....The observations indicate they probably (Emphasis added.) consist of nearly pure sulfuric acid....These are present in the main cloud and in the hazes above and below, but though they are the dominant constituent of the haze they are a minor constituent of the main cloud. Second, there are larger particles...largely confined to the cloud, each particle probably (Emphasis added.) consisting of a liquid droplet of rather impure H 2 SO 4 [sulfuric acid with up to 20% of other substances. [Third, there are solid particles...largely confined to the lower half of the main cloud....This third type is the dominant constituent of the main cloud and also accounts for most of the opacity. (52) Jones tells us that this third constituent produces most of the opacity of the clouds. Greenhouse theorists base their conclusions regarding cloud opacity upon this third constituent. One cannot, as Sagan seems to suggest, derive a spectroscopic analysis of this deeper cloud material for two reasons: One, this material is located much deeper in the clouds and light from this region is very difficult to see. Two, even if one sees down to these depths, these particles do not produce spectroscopic lines. Kopal asks, What do the clouds of Venus really consist of? To determine their composition is far more difficult than to identify the gases constituting the atmosphere, because these clouds must consist of particles which are either solid or liquid. Such materials, unlike gases, do not produce spectral lines that can identify them. (53) Since I am dealing with Sagan's claim that the clouds of Venus are composed of sulfuric acid, I will complete this discussion using additional information. Billy P. Glass shows that Sagan's pronouncement regarding the composition of Venusian clouds is highly speculative. He informs us, contrary to Sagan, that [the nature of the clouds [of Venus has been a question of great interest for a long time. Speculative interpretations [regarding the principal constituent of the clouds include: water drops, ice, frozen carbon dioxide, carbon suboxide, mercury, halite, ammonium nitrate, ammonium chloride, silicate, dust particles, carbonate particles, formaldehyde, hydrocarbon droplets (Emphasis added.), partially hydrated ferric chloride and hydrochloric acid. (54) What becomes apparent is that the makeup of the clouds' principal liquid or solid component is still in question, no matter how often Velikovsky's critics suggest otherwise. Is it, therefore, possible that Sagan is still unaware that the composition of clouds is disputed? In their book, The Planetary System, David Morrison and Tobias Owen have a foreword written by Carl Sagan. He lauds the authors as "pioneers in the modern exploration of the solar system" whose book is "marked by a judicious and comprehensive selection of topics [with clear qualitative explanations." (55) What do Morrison and Owen say regarding the makeup of the Venusian clouds? Space probes that have passed through the clouds have given us a picture...of discrete cloud layers. Clouds are seen extending from 30 kilometers to 60 kilometers [19 miles to 38 miles above the surface. But what are the various clouds made of? Are they all sulfuric acid, as are the visible [topmost layers? Only the Soviet probes have attempted compositional measurements and their results have been contradictory. Sulfur or, possibly, chlorine compounds of some sort are indicated, but their exact identities are unknown. (56) (Emphasis added.) Thus, Sagan's sulfuric acid clouds are nothing of the sort. Sagan has disqualified himself from any meaningful discussion of Velikovsky's work. Furthermore, with respect to the greenhouse effect, one cannot assume anything about the opacity of the clouds because their chemical makeup is simply not known. With the ability of the hazes, clouds and sulfur dioxide to block 20% of the greenhouse windows in question because the hazes and sulfur dioxide levels fall to 10% of their earlier measured values over periods of years, their efficiency in blocking infrared from escaping Venus must also be reduced to some level below the full efficiency of 20%. This being the case, it becomes critical for the runaway greenhouse theory that water vapor be found in sufficient quantity so as to block the remaining 25% greenhouse window. The question is, How much water vapor is needed to do this? Originally, when Sagan first began his work, he believed the surface pressure on Venus was only 4 bars. From this, he calculated a required water vapor fraction of the atmosphere, between 5% and 23%, to close this greenhouse window and permit a surface temperature of 600 K. (57) As time went on, space probes made more precise measurements of Venus' chemical makeup and solar heating values. The parameters of pressure changed and, with these changes, the water vapor requirement changed. In essence, the greenhouse investigators did not know what each of the parameters really was and, thus, had to adjust their theoretical requirements accordingly. Nevertheless, these parameters are now very well measured, though they may vary slightly, and the greenhouse theorists have a good idea of the amount of water vapor necessary to reach the full 25% window closure needed to support the theory. Yet, years of searching for this water vapor constituent on Venus have failed to find anything like this necessary component at the required level. As recently as September, 1991, it was still reported that a research team [had focused on a greenhouse puzzle....The absence of water vapor above Venus' clouds mystifie[d scientists because models of the planet's strong greenhouse effect suggest[ed that vapor play[ed a key role in maintaining the warming. Researchers ha[d...looked below the cloud deck and down to the surface --and their search ha[d come up dry.... Evidence of a dry Venus may force researchers to consider whether other chemicals could create and sustain the planet's greenhouse effect, said David Crisp of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory,...who co-authored the report. (58) Hence, the critical, second most important constituent for closing the 25% greenhouse window is clearly known to be insufficient to do its job. As with the problem discussed earlier about finding another enhancement gas besides water vapor to start the greenhouse mechanism on ancient Venus, we are faced with scientists searching for another gas besides water vapor to assist in mopping up 25% of the escaping infrared radiation on present-day Venus. The composition of the gases in Venus' atmosphere is very well-known, except for the constituents of the clouds. The constituents of the clouds are what greenhouse advocates have at their disposal as enhancement gases. As we already know, ammonia cannot be invoked for primordial Venus because Pollack has shown that photodissociation by ultraviolet radiation of ammonia, into nitrogen and hydrogen, would readily occur in the clouds --and these gases are difficult to recombine. Earlier, I mentioned that methane could have been invoked in the ancient atmosphere as an enhancement gas because it is an excellent greenhouse gas. And, in fact, there is evidence for methane in Venus' present atmosphere. (59) But, if the greenhouse theorists wish to turn to methane as the enhancer to close their 25% greenhouse window, they will be opening a door for Velikovsky's theory. Based on the research done, Velikovsky assumed "that Venus must be rich in petroleum gases. If, and as long as, Venus is too hot for the liquefaction of petroleum, the hydrocarbons will circulate in gaseous form." (60) Methane is the simplest of the hydrocarbon gases. The reader will recall Zdenek Kopal's statement that the yellowish color of the clouds, as seen in ultraviolet, denies that the clouds are composed of sulfuric acid. The question is, Can methane account for the yellowish color of Venus' deeper clouds? The answer may lie in the nature of a solar system body known to have much methane. Kenneth R. Lang and Charles A. Whitney discuss Titan, a giant satellite of Saturn: In 1944, Gerard Kuiper discovered signs of methane in the spectrum of Titan's atmosphere. The presence of nitrogen was firmly established in 1980, when the ultraviolet detectors aboard Voyager I showed that nitrogen molecules account for the bulk of Titan's atmosphere. Visible light cannot penetrate Titan's atmosphere, for it is covered by an obscuring veil of orange smog (Emphasis added.) produced by photochemical reactions as ultraviolet sunlight breaks methane and nitrogen molecules apart. Some of these fragments then recombine to create the smog, and, in Titan's dry cold atmosphere, the smog builds to an impenetrable haze. (On Earth, smog also forms by the action of sunlight on hydrocarbon molecules in the air.) (61) If Venus' clouds contain hydrocarbons, then the same photochemistry occurring in Titan's clouds may be occurring in Venus' clouds. Venus has nitrogen comparable to that of the Earth; its atmosphere is dry, ultraviolet is available and the clouds are very dark at a deeper level, as with Titan. Hence, with perhaps fewer reactions taking place where there is less methane to create smog, the number of reactions may create a yellowish smog rather than an orange one. One still cannot dismiss Velikovsky's hydrocarbon cloud composition for Venus, because the clouds' chemical composition is still not known. Returning to the greenhouse, if the clouds of Venus are made up of significant amounts of hydrocarbons, just as Velikovsky claimed, then the greenhouse advocates may be able to better secure their theory because methane --in abundance --may shut all the greenhouse windows that may be open. It is a fascinating catch-22 situation; Velikovsky's greenhouse critics refuse to claim that the Venusian clouds are made of hydrocarbons, because Velikovsky would have been right all along respecting this prediction. On the other hand, these greenhouse advocates may fail in their campaign if they reject hydrocarbon clouds, because their greenhouse enhancement gas may not be available. For those suggesting that, for Venus, no scientists would propose that an early-age planet would possess methane in its atmosphere, I cite James Oberg. Discussing how Mars, in its early day, maintained water on its surface at a time when the Sun produced 30% to 40% less radiation than it does now, he writes: According to [James B. Pollack, a Martian greenhouse of carbon dioxide alone would not produce a very efficient "greenhouse effect." In fact, a surface pressure of 2 bars [double the Earth's atmospheric pressure would be required for the globally- and annually-averaged surface temperatures to be above freezing. However, if the atmosphere were predominantly methane with admixtures of ammonia and water vapor, a very effective "greenhouse effect" would have been created which would have allowed liquid water to form...." (62) (Emphasis added.) If scientists suggest the possibility of methane, a hydrocarbon, in the early atmosphere of Mars, there is no compelling reason to deny that the same exists in Venus' atmosphere, presently, if Venus is an extremely young planet. At this stage of analysis, it is evident that all the component gases necessary to fully generate a runaway greenhouse effect on Venus are not found in appropriate amounts to sustain this effect --except for carbon dioxide. The amount of water vapor stands as a major obstacle to the solution of this problem. To argue that the water is there, except that we can't find it, is assuming what must be proven. Furthermore, much of the evidence regarding the hazes and clouds is simply assumed to be correct, as is, for example, the conclusion that they are composed of a 75% solution of sulfuric acid; when, in fact, there is enormous disagreement among scientists about the composition of the clouds. As we can see, all the assumptions must be taken as facts and, even with these, one cannot be confident that the greenhouse is a runaway greenhouse. But the assumptions are only assumptions "still to be proven by experiment," as von Braun stated. Therefore, the view that the runaway greenhouse is correct is simply not conclusive, and, therefore, ought not be promulgated. The conclusion that these gases are doing all that is claimed for them (except carbon dioxide) in Venus' atmosphere is tenuous at best.
_ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION
_There are two sources of energy that can circulate air masses in a planetary atmosphere. The first source of energy is the rotation of the planet. The Earth's winds generally blow in a west-to-east direction because of the Earth's rapid west-to-east rotation on its axis. Surface topography in contact with the atmosphere causes the bottom layer of air to move in the direction of the Earth's rotation. This motion at the bottom of the atmosphere is transferred by air currents to the rest of the atmosphere and imparts the west-to-east motion throughout. East-to-west or west-to-east motions are designated as zonal motion or zonal circulation. The second source of energy that imparts motion in a planet's atmosphere is solar heat. The sun's radiant energy heats the dayside of a planet, more so in the equatorial regions than in the polar regions. This form of radiant input causes the hot air to rise at the equator and, in the upper atmosphere, to move toward the cooler polar regions. When the air becomes sufficiently cooled, it sinks to the surface and then returns, along this surface route, to the hot equatorial regions where it is heated to rise and repeat the cycle. George Hadley, who explained this motion, has had this atmospheric circulation named for him. Such heat-driven motions are called Hadley cells. North-to-south and south-to-north motions are designated as meridional motion or meridional circulation. On the Earth, which is rotating rapidly and is also heated by solar radiation, a combination of these two motions develops. Air, heated at the equator, rises and blows meridionally north in the northern hemisphere and south in the southern hemisphere. But the air masses are also feeling the influence of the Earth's rotation and, thereby, are forced to veer toward the east in both hemispheres as they leave the equatorial regions. Because the air masses at the equator are moving zonally at 1,000 miles per hour while those air masses farther north and south are moving more slowly in relation with the Earth's rotation, a pseudo-force is created which causes air masses to circulate in a broad, counterclockwise movement in the northern hemisphere and to circulate clockwise in the southern hemisphere. For example, if we were to slow down the Earth's rotation to a sidereal rotation period of 100 days, the Earth's air masses would receive almost no push from the surface topography and the west-to-east zonal motion would, over time, dissipate and almost come to a stop. The Sun would still be heating the equatorial regions on such a slowly rotating Earth, on the dayside, for longer time periods. This solar heat force would generate very powerful Hadley cells and the dominant form of atmospheric circulation would be meridional, north and south motions. There would be practically no zonal motion in the Earth's atmosphere under such conditions. On Venus, we encounter the same two forces: planetary rotation and solar radiation. However, there is a singular difference between the two planets. Venus' rotation rate is 243 times slower than that of the Earth. There is no compelling rotational force on Venus to cause its atmosphere to rotate zonally, that is east to west. Because of this one fact, the other force --solar radiation --becomes the only significant, driving mechanism in Venus' atmosphere and should induce two giant, hemispheric, meridional Hadley cells. This, then, is an excellent way with which to test Velikovsky's concept that Venus is heated uniformly from its hot molten core not far below its crust and compare it to the concept of solar greenhouse heating. If the solar-induced runaway greenhouse effect is the dominant source of heat for Venus' atmospheric circulation, its atmosphere should exhibit clearly observable, directly measurable Hadley cells. In Pioneer Venus we read that [thermal contrasts provide the driving mechanism for the general circulation, since they set up the pressure differences to drive [air flow. The absence of large thermal contrasts in the atmosphere of Venus means that there is a very effective transport of heat from equator to poles and from the subsolar to antisolar points by means of atmospheric circulation; the atmosphere must be able to transport heat from the region below the Sun to the rest of the planet. (63) If such a circulation is not found, or the atmosphere shows practically no or extremely small, meridional motions, one may be confident that the greenhouse mechanism is not the generating force in Venus' atmosphere. If Velikovsky is correct and the entire planet is heated fairly uniformly from its subsurface, then Hadley cells are not required so as to circulate the air masses. Velikovsky's theory requires no such circulation pattern. If Venus' heat is derived from below its hot crust, then all that the Venusian atmospheric gases have to do is either radiate, conduct or convect heat upward. There is no requirement to circulate hot air masses from the equator to the poles and back to the equator. If the runaway greenhouse effect is correct, there will be definite Hadley cells circulating the atmosphere. If Velikovsky is correct, few or no Hadley cell motions will be observed or measured. Gerald Schubert explains how this Hadley circulation works and why it is necessarily expected for the Venus greenhouse theory: The basic drive for atmospheric circulation is latitudinal imbalance between absorbed solar radiation....In equatorial latitudes, more energy is absorbed than is reradiated to space. The opposite is true in polar latitudes. The atmosphere must redress this imbalance by transporting heat poleward. Meridional transport of heat in the Earth's atmosphere is accomplished by a Hadley circulation in low latitudes and by baroclinic [pressure change eddies in mid-latitudes....However, baroclinic heat transport would not be expected to dominate in the mid-latitudes of an atmosphere on a slowly rotating planet like Venus and a Hadley circulation, on Venus, would be expected to extend to high polar latitudes. Thus, it would be anticipated that the primary circulation mechanism on Venus would be a pair of [north and south hemispheric Hadley cells symmetric about the equator, with rising motions over the equatorial latitudes, poleward flow at high latitudes sinking over the polar regions and equatorward flow near the surface. It is, therefore, remarkable that Venus' dominant atmospheric circulation is a westward super-rotation. However, zonal winds cannot transfer heat poleward, so there MUST BE a weaker meridional circulation as well. (64) (Capitalization added.) Gerald Schubert fully agrees that the greenhouse mechanism requires Hadley cells as the dominant form of circulation. To the chagrin of the greenhouse theorists, instead of discovering a circulation pattern in harmony with the greenhouse theory, one featuring the opposite was found. Westward blowing winds, Schubert admits, do not transport heat toward the poles and super-rotation means that, at all latitudes and altitudes, the wind is moving zonally east to west on Venus. Thus, where is the meridional circulation carrying hot air to the poles and cooler air back to the equator, if the greenhouse effect dominates Venus' atmosphere?! According to Schubert, somehow a weak meridional circulation must exist. By saying that such a circulation must be proves absolutely nothing. What is the evidence for this circulation pattern? Let us examine the bottom layers of the atmosphere to see if any turnover Hadley cells are operating there. Pioneer Venus reported the following: A surprising discovery is that much of the deep atmosphere is stably stratified like the Earth's stratosphere or like air in the Los Angeles basin on a smoggy day. (Emphasis added.) From the clouds down to 30 [kilometers altitude (a layer 23 kilometers deep) [14 miles and in the lower layer [at the surface between 15 kilometers and 20 kilometers[ 9 miles to 12 miles altitude, the atmosphere is stratified and free of convective activity. It does not rise and overturn in the way that air does over hot farm or desert land on Earth, or in cumulus clouds. This was unexpected, because the high temperatures in the deep atmosphere were thought to be a source of hot rising gas which would lead to deep convective cells [Hadley cells and turbulence. Also, before Pioneer Venus, theoretical studies had indicated that, at radiative equilibrium much of the lower atmosphere would be unstable and would be overturning. (65) (Emphasis added.) There is no Hadley circulation in atmospheric layers; one being, from the surface, up to 12 miles high and the other from the clouds down, a layer 14 miles thick. This lack of circulation in the lower atmosphere is a fundamental contradiction to the greenhouse mechanism and Schubert specifically makes this point: "A direct meridional circulation in the deep atmosphere is...needed to balance the observed increase in infrared cooling with latitude." (66) If there is more heat at the equator and less toward the poles, as Schubert claims, where is the circulation of air toward the equator that should support this statement? These conclusions exist nowhere, except in theory and on paper. For example, on the basis of certain readings from one Pioneer Venus Night probe, it was quickly determined that there were three layers of air in Venus' atmosphere below 40 kilometers (25 miles) where winds blow north and south, away from the equator, as giant air flows, distributing hot air from the equator very near to the poles and the returned cooler air back to the equator. (67) Nevertheless, Pioneer Venus probes measured the wind directions at other points on the planet and found that "the meridional winds below 40 kilometers at the other Pioneer Venus probe sites...are not consistent with a three-layer mean circulation pattern and probably represent eddies." (68) There is no evidence for Hadley cell circulation in the lower atmosphere. Is there any solid evidence for air descending at or around the poles to the surface, as the greenhouse model requires? We do know that the data at all sites showed that the lowest 20 kilometers of air is stable over the entire planet. That should have been enough to eliminate that idea, but we find Hunt and Moore suggesting: Infrared observations from Pioneer Orbiter have led to the discovery of a significant cloud morphology in the north polar region of Venus, which appears as a dipole structure. It consists of two clearings in the clouds, in locations straddling the pole and rotating around it in about 2.7 days. The clearings are thought to be evidence for subsidence of the atmosphere at the center of the polar vortex. (Emphasis added.) The absence of descending [air motions elsewhere suggests that a large, single circulation [Hadley cell may fill the northern hemisphere at levels near the cloud tops. (69) On the other hand, Schubert states that these hot spots may be lowering, in the cloud tops associated with descending motion near the center of the polar vortex. However, other prominent thermal features of the cloud level polar atmosphere are not so obviously related to the descending motions of a polar vortex. "[ Radiometer measurements at the poles [of Venus appeared to confirm theories of a downward-moving polar vortex. But the belt of atmosphere above the cloud tops proved to be about 10 C (18 F) hotter than similar regions at the equator." (71) Therefore, cooler equatorial cloud top air masses that are hotter than polar air masses, at the same altitude, should not blow toward the poles. This type of motion would defy the Second Law of Thermodynamics! There are other similar, supposed thermal features in other areas of Venus' atmosphere, like those at the poles, which show no signs that air is descending. Schubert remarks that the "interpretation of the meridional wind velocities measured by P.V. [Pioneer Venus probes in terms of the mean meridional circulations...is only speculative and is guided by other observations of wind speed and atmospheric structure and theoretical ideas about the nature of the mean circulation." (72) (Emphasis added.) Clark R. Chapman put the situation into the clearest perspective when he said that "[ theorists began to expect there might be traditional Hadley cell winds, with greenhouse-warmed air rising in the Venusian tropics. But, after Pioneer Venus, the Hadley model remains a plausible hypothesis in search of confirmation." (73) All the evidence contradicts the notion that solar radiation is moving heat to the poles or that cooler polar air is moving to the equator. Why, then, are the scientists driven to find some meridional Hadley cell circulation? Schubert reasons that, "[ while there is not actual evidence of indirect meridional cells, there are strong theoretical reasons to expect that they exist." (74) Chapman stated that greenhouse theorists expect Hadley cell circulation. Schubert stated that there are strong, theoretical reasons for their existence. This means that the greenhouse effect requires them to exist, therefore they must exist. The theory is determining what the evidence must say. In the following segment of this paper, the reader will see the lengths to which the astronomers have gone to make the evidence that fully contradicts the greenhouse fit this theoretical belief. Here, too, we see the same dismissal of evidence! Pollack sums up the case being made: "The east-west winds on Venus blow in the direction of the planet's rotation at all latitudes." (75) The question that must be answered is, Why is the atmospheric circulation on Venus zonal rather than meridional? Velikovsky has proposed that this east-to-west circulation is caused by the angular momentum of Venus' enormous tail of gas that fell to the planet a few thousand years ago when it achieved its present orbit. The enormous mass of that body of gas in the tail descended, in a sweeping orbit, down and around the planet, moving in one direction as it wrapped and enveloped Venus. The great, angular momentum created is still moving the Venusian atmosphere in a powerful super-rotation at all latitudes and altitudes, east to west. According to Schubert: From the dynamical viewpoint, the major challenge of the Venus atmosphere is to explain its bulk super-rotation. We have seen that this is westward at all latitudes and at altitudes between 10 kilometers and 100 kilometers. Zonal wind velocity increases steadily with height above the surface....The angular momentum density of the atmosphere's rotation increases with height from the surface to 20 kilometers and decreases with height above this level. Most of the atmospheric angular momentum is contained in the layer between 10 kilometers and 40 kilometers....The problem facing the dynamicist is to find the source of the excess atmospheric angular momentum, and the processes which transport this momentum both vertically and horizontally. (76) Venus' total atmospheric angular momentum is greater than that of the Earth by almost a factor of 200. This angular momentum would be able to change the rotation of the solid planet by several hours. This amount of angular momentum, 3.6 X 10 28 kg M 2 S -1, (77) does not dissipate quickly. But, over millions, not to say billions, of years, it should have dissipated if the greenhouse heating effect was operating. The bulk of the atmosphere's momentum is found some 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) above the surface, up to 40 kilometers (25 miles) high, with an air flow that is 19 miles thick. Like an air stream, the greatest force of the current is in the region above the stream bed and below the upper regions. This region on Venus is where the atmosphere is as dense as possible, where the bulk of the atmosphere's mass is found, where there is practically no topographical obstruction below and where there are the fewest eddy motions. As Schubert explained above, only one of the four Pioneer Venus probes encountered eddy currents below 40 kilometers. (78) What is, therefore, observed is a gravitational force like that found in an oceanic stream. This is fully congruent with Velikovsky's theory because Venus' tail, as it fell, would create such a stream. The air masses below and above the stream are forced, by contact with it, to move in the same direction, while, at the very bottom of the atmosphere, the dense air is harder to move. According to Jonathan Weiner, loops or rings of water break off from the Gulf Stream into the Atlantic Ocean. These rings flow in circles which are many miles in diameter, but they are not whirlpools. The water inside and outside the rings is not rotating at all. The depth of water rotating in the rings is 900 feet deep and these rings of motion may continue to flow from four months up to several years. (79) If a ring of water flowing in the ocean can last for several years, a shallow ocean flowing in one direction would flow for tens of thousands of years. How do the atmospheric scientists explain this motion? They have only two forces with which to create super-zonal rotation. One is the rotation of Venus, which is too slow to generate this kind of circulation. The other is the Sun, which should produce meridional Hadley cell circulation. What these scientists suggest is that the very force which will generate Hadley cell circulation --the Sun --can create eddies in the upper atmosphere that move east to west predominantly and act as a torque to create the same east-to-west motions below them. Of course, no one believes that the Sun, which has sufficient influence to produce super-zonal rotation, is doing this; because, if it can do this, its influence would and should generate super-meridional Hadley cell circulation by the very same process, specially when that is the very nature of the circulation that should be generated by the Sun. Oberg sums up the unreality of the interpretation of super-zonal atmospheric rotation. He finds it is a: puzzle [that awaits explanation, the wind velocities in Venus' atmosphere.... Venus rotates at a speed of only five mph [miles per hour at its equator, but these cloud markings are traveling at a velocity 100 times that. On Earth, jet streams in the outer atmosphere may occasionally travel [20% or 30% faster than Earth's spin.... How could Venus' upper atmosphere be propelled around the planet at such disproportionate velocities? Initial meteorological computer simulations could not account for speeds [anywhere near as high. The dynamics of this atmosphere, which should have been so simple, were increasingly puzzling. Although recent computer models have been able to simulate the effect thought to have been seen on Venus, they are rather strained and artificial. (80) In essence, the scientists have explained super-zonal rotation by the very force that explains super-meridional Hadley cell circulation. The contradiction is so apparent that it requires no further attention. As stated by S. S. Limaye, the greenhouse model has still failed to explain the super-rotation of Venus'atmosphere. (81) Once again, there is a fundamental contradiction in what the scientists are proposing and none with respect to Velikovsky's concept. After billions of years of having greenhouse solar heat pump hot air to the poles from the equator, on a slowly rotating planet, and back to the equator via Hadley cell circulation, Venus' atmosphere should not exhibit any significant zonal circulation at all. The entire process, created by the scientists to have the Sun create atmospheric zonal motion, is the complete antithesis to its action. It is a futile operation, strained and artificial, reminiscent of the inventions of Rube Goldberg.
_BALANCING THERMAL IMBALANCE
_Ultimately, what is the reason given for support of this theory? The answer is that Venus must have a runaway greenhouse effect operating because the planet is in thermal balance. If Velikovsky was right, Venus, as a newborn planet in the early cool down stages of it development, should be emitting much more heat than is supplied to it by the Sun. It should have a thermal imbalance; the nearer to the planet one measures infrared emissions, the greater this imbalance should be between solar input and infrared planetary output. Venus is not heated from below its surface, we are informed by greenhouse advocates, but by the greenhouse effect. It is made clear that measurements prove, conclusively, that Venus is known to be in thermal balance at all levels in its atmosphere and, therefore, Velikovsky is wrong. As Carl Sagan stated: What I think Velikovsky is trying to say here is that his Venus...is giving off more heat than it receives from the Sun and that the observed temperatures, on both the night and day sides, are due more to the "candescence" of Venus than to the radiation it now receives from the Sun. But this is a serious error. The bolometric albedo (the fraction of sunlight reflected by an observed infrared temperature of the clouds of Venus of about 240 K) that is to say, the clouds of Venus, are precisely at the temperature expected on the basis of the amount of sunlight that is absorbed there. (82) If Sagan's conclusion and analysis of the measured data is correct, then, certainly, Velikovsky's theory is dead. But Sagan's claim that Venus is in thermal balance is contradicted by a series of measurements that show that there is no thermal balance observed anywhere in Venus' atmosphere, from its cloud tops to its surface!
_In 1978, George R. Talbott, a physicist whose specialty is thermodynamics, carried out a fundamental calculation regarding Venus' surface temperature. He did something quite commonly done in laboratories all over the world. If a substance is heated to candescence and then left to cool, a thermal analysis of its properties with regard to heat conduction, radiation, etc., can tell how long ago the substance was candescent. Talbott started with a candescent Venus, 3,500 years ago, and determined what its surface temperature would be after 3,500 years of cooling. Of course, Talbott's calculations were much more complicated than the simple analysis carried out in laboratories. What he discovered after setting up all the possible parameters on a computer and running the program was a surprise and a shock. He started with a molten Venus with a surface temperature of 1,500 K and 2,000 K, allowed for heat transfer, internally, by flowing cells of magma radiating into a heavy atmosphere, and found that Venus' surface temperature, presently, was exactly 750 K --just what the surface temperature presently is. (83) Some individuals claimed that Talbott could not have reckoned correctly, because the parameters governing Venus 3,500 years ago could not be known with precision. On the other hand, overestimates of some parameters could have been balanced by underestimates of others. However, for Talbott to be wrong, as is --supposedly --Velikovsky, Talbott's work would have had to be in error by 100%. Other than that, Venus is in thermal imbalance.
_As I will show below, the actual measurements of infrared emissions from Venus, compared to solar radiation input at the Venusian surface, do not contradict Talbott's work. By taking the known surface temperature of the Sun and calculating the distance to Venus, Venus' thermal balance or imbalance is determined. At Venus' distance, the solar radiation will be diminished to a particular value. One then calculates the diameter of the planet with its atmosphere to determine how much area intercepts this solar radiation value. What is most important for the rest of the calculations is to determine, as precisely as possible, how much light is reflected by the planet's clouds and how much light or radiant energy is absorbed. This ability of clouds to reflect light is called its albedo. The higher the percentage of albedo, the more light is reflected; the lower the percentage of albedo, the more light is absorbed. This albedo figure must be known precisely, before it can be determined, at the cloud top temperature of 240 K, whether or not Venus is in thermal balance. Only a few percentages of difference, say, 0.76 and 0.78, or 2%, at the cloud tops, would have a pronounced effect on Venus and would indicate about 10% more heat coming from the planet than is supplied by sunlight. What do the measurements actually show? V. I. Moroz presented some of the earlier measurement of Venus' albedo. G. Muller measured it to be 0.878, or 87.8%, in 1893. Andre Danjon derived a spherical albedo for Venus of 0.815 in 1949, while C. F. Knuckles, M. K. Sinton and W. M. Sinton derived a spherical albedo for Venus, of 0.815, in 1961. (84) What Moroz did was average the readings to get the best possible indication of the actual albedo. The more acceptable measurements are the most recent and use the latest technical developments, specially those taken from spacecraft orbiting Venus. These are fully discussed by F. W. Taylor et al. in an article titled, "The Thermal Balance of the Middle and Upper Atmosphere of Venus." The albedo found does not indicate thermal balance, but thermal imbalance. The reader will learn that these readings and their implications of a thermal imbalance were so distressing to the investigators that they rejected all the measurements showing that Venus was emitting more heat than the sunlight was delivering. F. W. Taylor states: Measurements of albedo are more difficult to calibrate than those of thermal flux, because of the problem of obtaining an accurate reference source. Using earth-based measurements, Irvine (1968) calculated a (1968) calculated a value for A [albedo of 0.77 0.07, which was later revised upward to 0.80 0.07 by Travis (1975). The Pioneer Venus infrared radiometer had a 0.4 to 4.0 µm channel calibrated by a lamp from which Tomasko et al. (1980b) obtained a preliminary albedo for Venus of 0.80 0.02. Another approach to determining the albedo is simply to assume that the atmosphere is in net radiative balance...[by equation. In this way, a value of 0.79+ 0.02- 0.01 has been obtained from Venera radiometry (Ksanfomality, 1977, 1980b) and [a value of 0.76 0.006 [has been obtained from Pioneer Venus emission measurements (Schofield et al., 1982). Clearly the Pioneer measurements of emission and reflection are not consistent with each other if net radiative balance applies. (Emphasis added.) A source inside Venus equal in magnitude to 20% of the solar input (i.e., accounting for the difference between A= 0.76 and A= 0.80) is very unlikely, since Venus is thought to have an Earth-like makeup, which would imply internal heat sources several orders of magnitude less than this. Also, even if such sources were postulated, it is difficult to construct a model in which these fairly large amounts of heat can be transported from the core to the atmosphere via a rocky crust without the latter becoming sufficiently plastic to collapse of the observed surface relief. This could be avoided if the transport was very localized, i.e., via a relatively small number of giant volcanoes. Although large, fresh-looking volcanoes do appear to exist on Venus...and the composition of the atmosphere is consistent with vigorous output from these, a simple comparison with terrestrial volcanism shows that the volcanic activity on Venus would have to be on an awesome scale to account for the missing 5 X 10 15 W [watts, or so, of power. A more acceptable alternative is that the preliminary estimate of 0.80 0.2 for the albedo from the P. V. [Pioneer Venus measurements is too high, since the uncertainty limit is now known from further work to be too conservative. (J. V. Martonchik, personal communication.) A fuller analysis of the P. V. [Pioneer Venus albedo data --still the best, in terms of wavelength, spacial and phase coverage, and radiometric precision, which is likely to be obtained for the foreseeable future --is likely to resolve this puzzle. In conclusion, then, the best thermal measurements of Venus WITH THE ASSUMPTION OF GLOBAL ENERGY BALANCE yield a value for the albedo of 0.76 0.1; this is the most probable value. (85) (Capitalization added. Let us examine what was assumed as the truth regarding the reasons for Venus being in radiative balance. First, Taylor and his colleagues assumed that each of the albedos measured by all the other investigators was wrong or that the instrumental error range in every other investigator's case was always on the minus side. There were three measurements: one by Irvine of 0.77 0.07, revised upward by Travis to around 0.80 0.07; another by Tomasko et al., using Pioneer Venus instruments to obtain a value of 0.80 0.02; and another, based on the assumption that Venus was in thermal balance, by Ksanfomality, who used Venera instrumentation to calculate an albedo of 0.79+ 0.02- 0.01. Thus, three albedo measurements indicated that the reflection of light, in terms of albedo, clustered around 0.80, the last two with tolerance levels plus or minus well above 0.76, accepted as the emission albedo by Taylor and his colleagues. If Venus reflected 80% of the light incident to it, but allowed 4% more light than was found by the emission albedo of 0.76, then the planet was emitting 20% more heat than sunlight delivered. Usually when a group of scientific measurements cluster around a particular value, as the 80% albedo did, scientists assume that the averaged value of these readings is a fairly good indication of the actual figure. By averaging the measurements, scientists achieve the best approximate value. However, since it was unthinkable that Venus could be in radiative imbalance, even based on one measurement that assumed balance but arrived at a figure of A= 79%, J. V. Martonchik reevaluated the Pioneer Venus data that gave an albedo of 80% .02% and recalculated the possible instrument error to make it large enough so that, on the minus side, it would agree with the lower 76% emission albedo. This was presented in a private communication that could not be analyzed by other investigators to determine whether or not Martonchik's correction was itself without error. Second, Taylor and his colleagues assumed that Venus must possess an internal heat source almost equivalent to that of the Earth. Since the Earth generates an internal heat value much smaller than the value that suggests a 20% imbalance on Venus, they concluded that Venus, itself, could not be responsible for this additional heat. If Venus' emissions were actually this much greater, they said, Venus would have to be enormously volcanic, and --in the next breath --said Venus appears to exhibit a highly volcanic surface. They also admit that the Venusian atmosphere appears to contain the gases consistent with vigorous, volcanic outgassing. But all these correlations mean nothing. Taylor and his collleagues say such agreement between thermal imbalance and Venus' volcanic surface and atmosphere is too incredible to accept, and reject all of this on the one assumption that Venus must be in thermal balance. Yet their conclusion states that the 0.76 0.01 albedo is the most probable value. There is no evidence to suggest this. Nevertheless, if this assumption is correct, it should be corroborated by all the other readings taken by Venera and Pioneer Venus probes. These readings should exhibit demonstrable evidence of radiative balance throughout the rest of the Venusian atmosphere. This, in fact, is not the case. In fact, all the other readings deliver a death blow to any assertion that Venus ' atmosphere is in thermal balance. If the runaway greenhouse effect is correct, not only must the cloud tops exhibit thermal balance between solar input and infrared thermal output, but the lower atmosphere must show the same. If, as Velikovsky claims, the greenhouse effect presents only a minor contribution to Venus' high thermal emission, then as one gets closer to the surface of the planet, the measurements should show an even greater radiative imbalance than the 20% suggested by the cloud top readings. The nature of establishing radiative balance in an atmosphere is explained thus, "Radiative balance occurs [on a planet at every level when the amount of downward, directed solar radiation that is absorbed is equal to the amount of infrared radiation that is emitted upward. When local temperature satisfies this balance, the atmosphere temperature is maintained." (86) (Emphasis added.) M. G. Tomasko further reinforces this concept: In a steady state, the algebraic sum of the atmospheric heating and cooling rates due to all physical processes should [equal zero at each location. At a given location, the heating and cooling rates depend on the state of the atmosphere: its temperature, pressure, composition, radiation and wind fields. A successful steady-state model for the thermal balance of Venus' lower atmosphere will include the relationship of the heating and cooling rates to the atmospheric state, and show that the atmospheric structure leading to net zero heating or cooling at each location is equal to the observed structure. (87) What, then, do the Pioneer Venus probes that entered the atmosphere show regarding this? According to Tomasko, "Among the most accurate measurements of the temperature-pressure structure of the lower atmosphere of Venus [we find those made by the four Pioneer Venus (PV) probes....The probe entry locations...vary in latitude from 30 South to 60 North [and measure Day and Night...temperature profiles...." (88) According to Richard A. Kerr, the editor of Science: When Pioneer Venus probes looked at the temperature, each one found more energy being radiated up from the lower atmosphere than enters it as sunlight....To further complicate the situation, the size of the apparent upward flow of energy varies from place to place by a factor of [two, which was a disturbing discovery. (89) It is impossible to believe that in one area the greenhouse effect is twice as efficient as in others. From Velikovsky's theoretical viewpoint, parts of Venus' surface, known to the scientists as coronea, or hot spots, are much hotter than other areas of the surface. This would clearly explain these measurements. From the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) publication, Pioneer Venus, we have the following: The measured, infrared fluxes [upward from Venus show several anomalies, the origin of which is still being debated. Taken at face value, the anomalies suggest that parts of the atmosphere are transmitting about twice the energy upward than is available from solar radiation at the same level. (90) It is obvious that wind motions, pressures and all the other atmospheric conditions in Venus' atmosphere will not create a 50% imbalance. While the cloud top indicated a 20% thermal imbalance farther down in the atmosphere, the Pioneer Venus probes revealed a 50% radiative imbalance. This, of course, is in full agreement with Velikovsky's concept that the extremely hot planet's surface is the major heat source, indicated by greater fluxes of infrared closer to the thermal source. This finding was anathema to the investigators, as was the imbalance measured at the top of the cloud cover; but, What was to be done about these most accurate readings? Tomasko tells us exactly what some scientists did and why: The thermal flux profiles are surprisingly variable from site to site, in view of the great similarity in temperature profiles measured at these sites. In addition, at both the Night and North probes sites, they are much greater than the globally averaged solar net profile at low altitudes, implying a substantive radiative imbalance in the lower atmosphere. (Emphasis added.) In view of the large and variable nature of these flux measurements, the investigators have searched for instrumental problems which could have affected the measurements and have found one that could have systematically increased the measured thermal net fluxes....The authors believe that they understand the vertical dependence of the flux errors, and by adjusting the fluxes to reasonable values, at low altitudes, they have derived corrected fluxes. (91) (Emphasis added.) Corrected values are not really valid values. Not only did the scientists correct the two highest readings to "reasonable values," meaning thermal balance values, they corrected every probe reading because every probe showed strong radiative imbalance at all levels of the atmosphere --much as was found for the cloud tops. Based on the investigators' beliefs, they simply made the data fit the theory of a greenhouse in radiative balance. However, one may be quite sure that, if the readings corroborated their beliefs of thermal balance, we would be showered by this direct confirmation of theory. But these measurements did not exhibit any evidence for balance. As Kerr admitted, "The much ballyhooed greenhouse effect of Venus' carbon dioxide atmosphere can account for only part of the heating, and heating, for other mechanisms is now in turmoil." (92) In essence, the thermal imbalance at the cloud tops was corroborated by Pioneer Venus probes below the clouds, so one can be confident that such is also the case throughout the entire Venusian atmosphere. What must also be pointed out is that the Pioneer Venus probes did not measure radiation all the way down to the surface. According to Seiff, "[ temperature data were not obtained by the Pioneer probes below 12 kilometers [7 miles altitude." (93) Tomasko indicates that "[ the data from the temperature sensors of all four [Pioneer Venus probes terminated at 13 kilometers altitude." (94) From this fact, one would expect that, based on Velikovsky's concept, the Venera probes that did approach the surface, measuring the solar fluxes in and infrared thermal fluxes emitted from the surface, would show an even greater radiative imbalance than did the Pioneer probes. In fact, that is what they did! Seiff states: The heating rates needed to warm the atmosphere from the Day probe [Pioneer Venus profile to that of Venera 9 integrated over altitude...is 45 times the midday solar heat absorbed at 30 latitude....This is also true for the Venera 10, 11 and 12 data relative to the large probe data, for which necessary heating rates integrated over altitude are> [somewhat less than 40 times the mean dayside solar input for the albedo of 0.71. (95) (Emphasis added.) On page 219 of his article in Venus, Seiff essentially admits the same thing. The average reading from the Venera probes showed solar radiation absorbed by Venus. The surface infrared fluxes emitted were around 40 times more than enters Venus' atmosphere as sunlight. The tremendous rise in infrared heat nearer to the surface is similar to the heat emitted by a white-hot block of metal, in that, as one puts one's hand near the block, the heat rises, but, at a certain closer distance to the block, the heat rises immensely. This makes sense in terms of the greenhouse effect as well. The regions where most of the Sun's radiant energy is absorbed would, at those altitudes, generate the strongest greenhouse effect. Bruce Murray points out that On Venus,...a smaller fraction of the incident solar energy penetrates the atmosphere all the way to the surface. Most of it is scattered back into space to provide the bright image that is seen through the telescope; much of the remainder is absorbed within the atmosphere. Thus, Venus' atmosphere is heated more at the top and middle than at the bottom, and, in this sense, resembles more the shallow seas on Earth than its atmosphere. (96) The ocean is an excellent greenhouse, but sunlight is primarily absorbed at the upper 300 feet and this is the warmest region of the oceans. This explains why the solar greenhouse effect is greater at the cloud tops compared to Venus' output --by 80% of infrared heat energy, while the greenhouse effect's energy becomes reduced to 50% well below the clouds, and to 2.44% of infrared emissions given off by the planet at the surface. The regions of greatest solar absorption have the strongest greenhouse effect, compared to that emitted by the planet. The regions of least solar absorption have the weakest greenhouse effect, compared to that emitted by the planet. This apparently is true at Venus. Furthermore, all the readings showed the same clustering of values, of nearly 40 times greater than the solar radiation input, which strongly suggests that the readings were basically correct. The scientists found these measurements so repugnant to their theoretical greenhouse concept that they were dismissed. Seiff tells us that "it is clear that the Venera 9 Day probe differences cannot be induced by solar heating but must be ascribed to other processes or to measurement uncertainties." (97) All, and I stress, all of the measurements, from the cloud tops to the lower atmosphere to the surface, gave consistent readings of radiative imbalance --contrary to everything greenhouse advocates claim. No single set of probe readings by Pioneer Venus or Venera suggests, in any way, that scientists have clear measurements supporting their contention of thermal balance. Every reading is another nail in the coffin of their theory. Realizing this, their actions to ignore or deny these findings point to a rigidity that has no place in science. This rigidity of thought is expounded in Pioneer Venus, a NASA publication. Let us remember von Braun's admonition that the greenhouse effect is unproven by experiment. One of the primary objectives of the Pioneer Venus Multiprobe mission was to test thoroughly the belief that the "greenhouse effect" is responsible for the high surface temperature. (Emphasis added.) [After describing the measured thermal imbalance described above, they continue. Possible instrumental errors in this difficult measurement may be responsible. A possibility is that two of the probes entered regions that are unusually transparent to thermal radiation, but this is rather unlikely because much of the absorption [of infrared is due to ubiquitous carbon dioxide, which makes up nearly all the atmospheric gas. The suggestion has been made that heat balance oscillates around an average state and that the anomalous measurements were made during the heating phase [Venus' temperature goes up and down over time with respect to its balance temperature and the probes, just by coincidence, descended on Venus during the heating period. In spite of these difficulties in interpreting some of these observations, the greenhouse effect, coupled with global dynamics, is now well-established as the basic explanation of the high surface temperature. (98) At every step of the investigation, every measurement showed radiative imbalance wherever readings were taken in the Venus atmosphere; and, at every step, every measurement that contradicted the runaway greenhouse effect concept of thermal balance was either changed, culled or set side based solely on a theoretical belief that Venus must be in thermal balance. We have observed this irrational behavior, of setting aside evidence negative to greenhouse assumptions, from the beginning of this investigation right up to the end, based only on the theoretical greenhouse consideration. Why take measurements if the scientists are not willing to accept any that contradict their theory? Needless to say, one can fully comprehend the nature of what has been going on with the evidence as handled by the greenhouse theorists and its advocates. It is sheer hypocrisy to suggest that the rules of science governed the way this data has been handled. But, finally, let us return to George Talbott's analysis of the cooling of Venus from a molten state to its present 750 K temperature. When we apply the findings of the Venera probe's surface measurements to analyze what contribution the greenhouse effect makes and what is contributed by the planet, a most interesting set of figures emerges. The Venera surface readings indicate that Venus emits about 40 times more heat than sunlight imparts. Simple algebra shows that X= solar radiation plus 40 X= the internal planetary radiation together= 750 K, the surface temperature. X+ 40 X= 750 K 41 X= 750 K X= 18.3 K, solar radiation input 40 X= 731.7 K, planetary internal heat Therefore, Talbott's analysis of the cooling of Venus, to derive its present surface temperature from a molten state, illustrates a high degree of accuracy. The 18.3 K solar input to the 731.7 K planet's internal heat shows that Talbott's percentage of error is no more than 2.44%, which is an extremely small value. But even if we double this error range, or triple it or quadruple it, Venus clearly appears to have an enormous radiative imbalance. The entire concept of the runaway greenhouse is supported by expediently using procedures that accountants and economists call "smoke and mirrors," not to say, pure denial of the facts. Velikovsky's theory regarding the thermal nature of Venus is in complete harmony with the real evidence and the actual measurements. The history of the advocates of the runaway greenhouse mechanism has been to give the theory a presumptive status precluding the notion that it must stand or fall on the basis of the evidence. But, as has been demonstrated, whatever the evidence indicates plays little or no role in the status of the theory. I suggest that such methods employed to support the runaway greenhouse theory are antithetical to any science and reflect, instead, the rigid thought processes of its advocates rather than inductive science. How else could so much negative, inconvenient data be changed or remain unrecognized? At every level at which the theory is examined or analyzed, it fails on the basis of the evidence. One is forced to assume that no conceivable, negative finding that sorely contradicts the theory will ever find acceptance by these investigators. Such an adherence to theory, as dominant in science, is really only dogmatism in disguise. It is extraordinary that scientists can allow theory to blind them to the facts. James E. Oberg, a strong advocate of the runaway greenhouse effect and vocal critic of Velikovsky, stated that "the `runaway greenhouse effect' is still in the running." (99) However, Professor Irving Wolfe, in a recent telephone conversation, told me what Velikovsky claimed would eventually happen. "The greenhouse vill go avay," he said. (100) The reader is left to draw his own conclusions about whether the runaway greenhouse effect is still in the running or will go away. It is quite clear that there is a greenhouse effect on Venus --not a runaway greenhouse effect --and that Velikovsky's concept is well-supported by the evidence.
_References
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Re: Mathis on Velikovsky +
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The Surface Of Venus -- "A Newborn Babe" [Aeon Journal]
From: Aeon III:1 (Nov 1992)

_The Surface Of Venus-- "A Newborn Babe", Charles Ginenthal
_Strange, when you think about it, how a lack of information so often grows by leaps and bounds into a belief that has no scientific basis but becomes "accepted fact" simply because enough people want to believe it. Few things irk men of science (and they aren't all that honest) more than having to respond to questions with a puzzled look on their faces and a a collective shrug of shoulders. People have a nasty habit of assuming that scientists should know about those matters on which they're questioned-- if for no other reason than that scientists spread this belief and spend great sums of money collecting information. But with all his instruments and a lifetime of study, the scientist doesn't really have the faintest idea of what it may be like on Venus. Oh, he's got ideas (most of them horribly wrong), but he does not know. If you don't know-- at least say something. Don't quite make up out of thin air. Deduce. If you have only a shred of cloth, weave yourself a magnificent set of clothes by mixing liberal amounts of imagination with that shred. That's just about what happened with what we thought we knew about Venus. The theories were both serious and preposterous. They were sincere and they were outlandish. They were well intended and they were based on everything we knew about Venus, but people couldn't separate minimum fact from maximum imagination, and what emerged was gibberish. Martin Caiden, Planetfall (New York, 1974), p. 138 In 1950, Immanuel Velikovsky claimed that the testimony of ancient peoples from all parts of the globe described Venus as a giant, brilliant comet. Based on Velikovsky's analysis of this data he drew the conclusion that Venus was a newborn planet in the early cool-down stage of its development. Therefore, if his understanding of the evidence was correct then Venus' surface should exhibit all the conditions of a world that was very recently molten and is most likely still volcanic and geologically active. In 1985, Dr. Lawrence Colin, Chief of the Space Science Division at nasa's Ames Research Center and co-editor of Venus, wrote:...Our knowledge of Venus was still seriously limited in the early 1960s prior to mankind's first rendezvous by spacecraft. In 1961 competing views of Venus could be classified in seven broad categories: 1. moist, swampy, teeming with life. 2. warm, enveloped by a global carbonic-acid ocean. 3. cool, Earth-like, with surface water and a dense ionosphere. 4. water, massive precipitating clouds of water droplets with intense lightning. 5. cold, polar regions with ice caps 10 kilometers thick and a hot equatorial region far above the boiling point of water. 6. hot, dusty, dry, windy global desert. 7. extremely hot and cloudy, with molten lead and zinc puddles at the equator, seas of bromine, butyric acid and phenols at the poles. From this list it is not obvious that scientists were all describing the same planet. For those who are impatient about the outcome, speculation 6 appears to represent most closely what we now think Venus is like. (1) Reinforcing the sixth option Ernest J. Opik, the internationally known astronomer of Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland, stated in 1960: The modern picture of Venus...[is a borderless desert extending over an area one hundred times that of the Sahara...[The Sahara itself would appear a paradise compared with the dry and suffocating dust storms raging behind the brilliant deceitful face of the Evening Star. (2) Nowhere was it ever suggested by establishment scientists that Venus would be found to be a volcanic cauldron covered by immense lava flows. In fact, as recent as 1989, Isaac Asimov, the late popular science writer, remarked: For years astronomers had believed that Venus was a geologically dead place. Although quakes, volcanoes and other activity surely wracked the planet at one time, it seemed certain that Venus was quiet today. (3) Therefore, if Velikovsky's analysis of the ancient testimony is correct the observations by the Magellan spacecraft should not only contradict the previous models of the Venusian surface but should also show overwhelming evidence of recent stupendous volcanism on a surface that appears to be pristine. One of the first indications of this excessive volcanism was presented in May 1990 in the Journal of Geophysical Research which analyzed the sulfur content of the Venusian clouds. There Na Y. Chan et al. state: Results of recent International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) observations of Venus made on January 20, 1987, and April 2 and 3, 1988, along with a re-analysis of the 1979 observations...are presented. The observations indicate that the amount of sulfur dioxide at the cloud tops of Venus declined by a factor of 84 from 38070 ppb [parts per billion to 5020 ppb in 1987 and 1988. (4) One of the researchers of this phenomenon, Larry Esposito from the University of Boulder Colorado, elaborated on this decrease of SO 2 and SO two months later in Astronomy: Pioneer Venus has continued to monitor these constituents above the clouds. Over the years a remarkable discovery has emerged: both sulfur dioxide and the haze have been gradually disappearing. By now only about 10 percent of the 1978 amount remains. This disappearance has also been confirmed by the Earth-orbiting International Ultraviolet Explorer between 1979 and 1987 and other Earth-based observations. The haze and the sulfur dioxide are now approaching their pre-1978 values. Analysis of recent Earth-based radio observations by Paul Steffes and his colleagues show less sulfur dioxide below the clouds than was measured by Pioneer Venus and Venera landers, which is also consistent with the decrease of sulfur dioxide. Inclusive Earth-based data show that a similar phenomenon may also have occurred in the late 1950s. The best explanation right now for the decrease is that from time to time major volcanic eruptions inject sulfur dioxide gas to high altitudes. The haze comes from particles of sulfuric acid, which is created by the action of sunlight on sulfur dioxide...Being heavy the particles gradually fall out of the upper atmosphere, letting conditions up there return to normal between eruptions. My calculations show that this eruption of the late 1970s was at least as large as the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa. The explosion, equal to a 500-megaton H-bomb, was the most violent of the last century or so shooting vast quantities of gas into the Earth's stratosphere. (5) Some scientists have already drawn the same tentative conclusion posited by Esposito. Thus James Pollock states: Measurements by the Pioneer Venus Orbiter show that the amount of sulfur dioxide present near the cloud tops declined from approximately 100 parts per billion (ppb) in 1978 to about 10 ppb in 1986. There is also fragmentary evidence of similar increases and decreases at earlier times. Such fluctuations might be due to episodic injections of SO 2 high in the atmosphere by powerful volcanic explosions. (6) David Morrison and Tobias Owen put the case even more strongly: Observations over the past twenty years have indicated that large fluctuations occur in the concentration of sulfur dioxide (SO 2) in the atmosphere of Venus above the clouds. When these observations are combined with indications of volcanic topography and lightning discharges for possible volcanism, the case for erupting volcanoes on Venus becomes rather strong. (7) This appears to be indirect evidence that at least twice in the 1950s and 1970s there were major volcanic eruptions on Venus' surface.
_There are, of course, questions and objections related to this analysis; nevertheless, the Magellan spacecraft may have already observed explosive volcanism. In the December 1990 issue of Scientific American appears a photograph made by Magellan which appears to exhibit exploded material from one of its craters. The caption accompanying the picture states: Explosive volcanism may be responsible for the radar-bright deposit that extends roughly 10 kilometers from the kilometer-wide volcanic crater at the center of the image. The etched pattern of the surrounding plains becomes more obscure closer to the crater, which indicates that the deposit is thickest near the crater. The shape of the deposit suggests that local winds either carried the plume southward or else gradually eroded away the plume material except for that part located in the volcano's wind shadow. These bits of information, though consistent with volcanic activity, need to be corroborated by other information that will give a more comprehensive picture of a planetary surface formed by massive volcanic processes. In this respect, we turn our attention to another body in the solar system that is in the throes of massive, violent, ongoing volcanism and exhibits several notable features related to this Venusian phenomenon. That body is Io, the inner Galilean satellite of Jupiter. As Io orbits around Jupiter it is constantly being distorted in shape by its tidal interactions with the very massive Jupiter and its three outer Galilean satellites. As Io is distorted and flexed, like the action produced by bending a spoon, enormous heat is generated producing volcanism. Therefore, Io is molten at a relatively low depth of its surface and its thin crust is floating on an ocean of molten magma. The amount of heat emitted by Io, according to David Morrison (a member of the imaging science team for the Voyager spacecraft) shows: "[ An internal heat source-- estimated at 10 14 W-- needed to drive this volcanism is two to three orders of magnitude [100 to 1000 times greater than that expected from normal radionucleides..." ( 8 ) Io is the most volcanic body in the solar system. According to Billy Glass: The volcanic eruptions [on Io appear to be comparable in intensity to the greatest terrestrial eruptions which are rare on the Earth...Io appears to be volcanically more active than the Earth. This has made mapping Io difficult because the active regions undergo radical changes in short periods of time. In the four month interval between Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, for example, one of the largest (200 km diameter) [122 miles eruptive centers on Io known as Prometheus was transformed from a heart shaped feature to a circular one. (9) Hence, if Venus was an incandescent body 3500 years ago and then cooled to the point where it became molten before it arrived at its present state, it should exhibit a topography quite similar to that of Io. In essence the volcanic forms observed on Io should generally be representative of the surface features seen on Venus. There should, of course, be differences between the bodies because Io's temperature is not decreasing whereas we presume that Venus' temperature is. Furthermore, there will be differences in the materials each body contains which will also affect the appearance of their surfaces. Before comparing Io and Venus we wish to point out that many of the volcanic craters on Io do give the appearance of impact craters. According to Carr et al.: Calderas occur in every region of Io so far photographed. They are generally recognizable by their strong resemblance to terrestrial and Martian calderas. In many cases no relief can be detected and a caldera is inferred from the presence of a dark circular feature....Over 5% of the Ionian surface seems to be part of a caldera, either dormant or active. Where relief is discernible the calderas are recognized as rimless depressions with steep, inward-facing scarps and relatively flat floors. (10)
_Plains Vulcanism
_David Morrison describes Io's volcanic features as follows: Some of Io's volcanic features look a great deal like their terrestrial counterparts: low shield-shaped constructs with calderas at their peaks and flows of erupted materials on their sides. However, most of Io's calderas are not at the tops of mountains but instead appear to be scattered amid the plains. (11) Io exudes its magma in this manner because it is tremendously hot internally and has an extremely thin crust. Therefore if Velikovsky was right that Venus was hot internally just below its thin crust it too should pour forth its magma after the fashion of Io. Observations should show evidence that lava is either presently or has very recently been exuded from circular vents on the plains of the Venusian surface. In New Scientist we learn that radar shows lava flows on Venus are indeed very much like those on Io: The flat plains of Venus consist of lava that has flowed from the planet comparatively recently, according to latest radar results. And an appreciable amount of the planet's heat may escape through these lava flows, rather than through large volcanoes and rift valleys that geologists have known for some years. In the plains the researchers found dozens of small vents, which oozed lava without forming volcanic cones. The researchers say, "The large number and wide distribution of vents in the lowlands strongly suggest that plains volcanism is an important aspect of surface evolution and contributed to heat loss on Venus". (12) Thus, there is a basic similarity that strongly suggests that Venus is venting its internal heat through plains volcanism. This implies that Venus, like Io, has a thin crust and is extremely hot not far beneath that crust.
_The Nature of Io's and Venus' Craters
_Since Io possesses such a thin crust floating on a bed of magma, that crust can become deformed. Io's craters are situated over the upwellings of the hottest magmatic flows and, therefore, distortion of the crust should be in evidence most strongly at these sites of upwelling. This, indeed, has been well observed by Voyagers 1 and 2. Carr, et al., describe the crater caldera shapes in this manner: "Although most [craters are nearly circular, they range widely in shape; some have scalloped walls suggesting collapse about different centers, others have rectilinear outlines, and others have elongate, slot-like shapes." (13) One of the first reports from Magellan respecting non circular craters on Venus was presented in the New York Times for Sept. 18, 1990. There it was reported that a kidney-shaped crater had been observed. The explanation given to explain this unusually shaped structure was that the "kidney-shaped crater appeared unlike any other in the solar system. Perhaps an incoming meteor broke up as it passed through the dense Venusian atmosphere, causing several large chunks of material to strike almost simultaneously in an irregular pattern." (14) However, over time more and more irregular shaped craters were observed so that the first example could no longer be considered unique. Thus an article in Discover states, "Even Venus' meteorite craters are intriguing. Some have strange and irregular shapes, in puzzling contrast to the round outline typical of most impact craters in the solar system." (15) So far as is known only two worlds-- Venus and Io-- exhibit very large numbers of misshapen craters. This again strongly implies that they were created in the same way under similar conditions. That is, both Venus and Io are highly volcanic and have thin crusts floating on magma: "Lunar craters, like terrestrial impact craters tend to be circular, whereas calderas do not." (16) Geophysicists have generally considered misshapen craters as volcanic structures on the Moon and on Io. However, when they observe misshapen craters on Venus in which nearly all craters over 12 miles in diameter are observed to be filled with lava and in which a percentage have lava rivers emanating from them, the scientists have changed their interpretation to suggest that the craters are no longer of volcanic origin but of impact origin. If Io's and Venus' craters were, indeed, generated by similar processes then they should also show common features other than their non-circular shapes. For example some of Venus' craters are quite deep. Thus Dr. Gordon H. Pettengill, a leader of the Magellan radar team, reported that the spacecraft's first altimeter measurements were defining the texture of the planet's topography. One surprise, he said, "was discovering that a previously surveyed impact crater named Colette is more than two miles deep-- far deeper than any crater seen on the Earth or any other planet." (17) On Io, too, we find that "some calderas are several kilometers deep" (18) Moreover, there is another level of resemblance between the craters of Io and Venus that strongly suggests that Venus' craters are of volcanic rather than impact origin. Because Io's craters are accepted as having been produced by volcanism the outflows of rivers of lava from them is not considered enigmatic to the space scientists. In this regard it is reported: One of the most striking aspects of Io's calderas is the associated albedo patterns. The floors of most are very dark and the low reflectivity of many is accentuated by bright haloes around the craters....[Sulfur rendered molten by heat from silicate magmas...may be the source of some of the river like features that snake across Io's surface...The flows from one of Io's craters are very long stretching for hundreds of kilometers. (19) R. Stephen Saunders reports of one Venusian crater: "The crater's flat, smooth floor hints that it has been flooded with lava." (20) Saunders exhibits photographs of Venusian craters which show dark floors with bright halos around them and then informs us that: "River-like erosion features running from the largest crater in the image are as yet unexplained." (21) The reason for this difficulty is, of course, that the interpretation of these long river-like structures from the craters suggests that the craters are not impact formations but volcanic creations. With respect to this long river, Andrew Chaikin writes: One of the most bizarre features yet identified on Venus is a remarkably long and narrow channel that Magellan scientists have nicknamed the river Styx. Although it is only half a mile wide, Styx is 4,800 miles long. What could have caused such a channel is unclear. Water, of course, is out of the question. Flowing lava is a possibility but it would have to have been extremely hot, thin and fluid. (22) One further resemblance between the craters of Io and Venus is their general size or diameter. Billy Glass observed that the craters depressions on Io are "up to 200 km in diameter." (23) On Venus it is assumed that any crater larger than 300 km would settle by rheological flow in about one billion years. (24) Sulfur is the fluid suggested as being responsible for river structures on Io. However, the River Styx runs up as well as downhill. What is clearly implied, if this feature is a flow, is that the surface topography has shifted greatly since the flow ceased. Furthermore, Science News reports recent changes on Venus that have been attributed to wind blown debris but a deep regolith has not been seen anywhere on Venus and the scientist who discovered the changes also suggests that the differences between the 1991 image and another taken months later "may stem from an actual surface change." (25) The largest craters so far observed are about 275 km in diameter. This implies that a molten body like either Io or possibly Venus would produce craters of this size and smaller. This, of course, is still to be determined by the full scale observation of Venus by Magellan. If this evidence holds up it will again imply that Venus is molten at shallow depth. This however, does not negate the possibility that tidal forces on solid bodies such as the Moon may generate larger craters such as the Maria basins. In summarizing the information about craters one notes that their shape, depth, size, and bright halos around craters and dark flat centers bearing river-like lava flows on both Io and Venus are strong indications that volcanism is the cause of these surface features. One can also add that both Io and Venus possess craters with central peaks and craters without central peaks which can be seen in any good collection of photographs made of these bodies. To some extent confusion reigns in the analysis of Venus' craters as impact structures. Consider the problems posed by the crater known as Cleopatra. Here Burnham points out: Cleopatra is an impact crater surrounded by terrain that has been extensively modified by volcanism, probably induced by the impact. According to present thinking, if there was enough volcanic material available close to the surface so that it could spill out after the impact, then Maxwell [a nearby mount itself would have softened and slumped to a much lower elevation. What is the answer? No one knows yet. (26) In no manner at all does impact cratering explain Cleopatra. Rather, as is the case with most volcanic craters, a vent made its way up to the slopes of Maxwell Montes and broke through the surface creating a large crater and pouring lava over the surface. Significantly, Burnham reports that, "All craters larger than about 20 kilometers across have interiors at least partially flooded with lava." (27) [italics added. From this it is quite clear that volcanism rather than impact is the dominant cause of cratering on Venus.
_Pancake-Shaped Domes and Other Anomalies
_Among the strangest features found on Venus is a series of pancake-shaped domes. This surprising discovery was recounted in the New York Times as follows: At the news conference yesterday, Dr. R. Stephen Saunders, the [Magellan project's chief scientist, showed pictures of...pancake-shaped domes which he said were "features never seen before" on any planet. In one region, seven domes remarkably similar in size stretch out in a line remarkably straight for nature...They were presumably formed by extreme viscous lava pouring out of volcanic vents. The pattern "is telling us something about the eruption mechanism, the viscosity and the eruption rate.' But that was as far as geologists ventured in the interpretation. (28) The unusual shape of these features should have struck a chord somewhere among the planetary geologists because pancake-shaped domes have also been observed on Io. Thus Carr et al., inform us: While most calderas [on Io do not seem to be within sharply defined edifices, a variety of positive relief features are recognizable. Most are puzzling and difficult to relate to terrestrial landforms. Among the more comprehensible because of their resemblance to low volcanic cones, are two pancake-like constructions...They are nearly circular, and surrounded by low escarpments. Each has a bright-floored small crater in the middle. The albedo [reflection of light by the material of the main edifice is uniform and close to that of the surroundings. (emphasis added) (29) Once again two worlds-- Venus and Io-- share a unique feature seen nowhere else. Of course, normal volcanic domes have also been observed on Venus. Here Eberhart reported: Beneath Venus' acrid clouds which perpetually shield its surface from the eyes of Earth-bound observers, lie tens of thousands of low dome-shaped features. For several years planetary scientists have pondered the origin and significance of these gentle mounds, which have appeared in radar images made of the planet since 1983. Apparently the result of volcanism, the domes constitute "the most abundant geological feature on the planet" says Jayne C. Aubele of Brown University: "I'm excited about the domes and other scientists are beginning to be also" Aubele says "the presence of a volcano on the surface of a planet always tells us something about the planet. The presence of tens of thousands of volcanoes overwhelms me". (30) Although the number of domes on Venus of volcanic origin may turn out to be smaller in number when Magellan completes its survey, the great number clearly indicates how abundantly volcanic Venus must be. One researcher sums it up this way: "Magellan's radar survey of Venus found thousands of small volcanoes dotting the mostly flat landscape, as well as mountainous volcanic structures several hundred kilometers in diameter and evidence of massive outpourings of lava." (31) Later we are informed that, "Magellan has found no evidence of gradual resurfacing." This suggests that Venus lava flows were immense in scale, which is what Velikovsky's concept requires.
_Hot Spots
_For some time now it has been known that certain areas on Io are far hotter than the surrounding surface terrain. Such areas are described as "hot spots." Here Morrison tells us, "In Io's case nature has aided us by channeling much of the heat flow into a few small areas resulting in hot-spots with temperatures far higher than the ambient background." (32) Alfred McEwen et al., suggest that, "Observations...show that most of the hot spots [on Io have remained relatively stable in temperature, location and total power output at least since the Voyager encounters and possibly for the last decade." (33) Hotspots have been associated with surface features on Venus for a very long time; they were originally found by Earth-bound radar and confirmed by Venera spacecraft. (34) James Head asks: The question with arguably the broadest implications is simply how has Venus chosen to get rid of its internal heat (emphasis in original). Does Venus cool itself by sending magma directly from the interior to the surface? Then we would expect to see widespread volcanic deposits and numerous "hot spots," like those on Jupiter's satellite Io. (35) Thus the presence of hot-spots suggests that Venus-- like Io-- is venting its heat via hot-spot volcanism. This, in turn, suggests that Venus-- similar to Io-- is molten at a shallow depth. One of the great enigmas of the "runaway greenhouse effect" is the problem of explaining the source of Venus' high surface temperature. Based on this analysis it now seems highly probable that the high surface temperature has little if anything to do with a greenhouse effect. Velikovsky's conclusion that Venus' surface heat is derived from its molten core appears to be correct.
_The Age of Venus' Surface
_In Worlds in Collision Velikovsky suggested that Venus' age was to be measured in thousands of years rather than billions. In a recent article in Science a leading astronomer offered the following observation regarding the age of Venus' surface: The planetary geologists who are studying the radar images streaming back from Magellan find that they have an enigma on their hands. When they read the geologic clock that tells them how old the Venusian surface is they find a planet on the brink of adolescence. But when they look at the surface itself, they see a newborn babe...(emphasis added) Magellan scientists have been struck by the newly minted appearances of the craters formed...Only one of the 75 craters identified on the 5% of the planet mapped shows any of the typical signs of aging, such as filling in with lava of volcanic eruptions or being torn by the faulting of tectonic disruption. But by geologists usual measure these fresh-looking craters had plenty of time to fall prey to the ravages of geologic change. (36) Based on the assumption that Venus is an ancient body the scientists estimate the surface of Venus to be on the order of 100 million to 1 billion years old. In short, even though they are confronted with a surface that is pristine scientists nevertheless interpret the evidence according to the theory that Venus is 4.5 billion years old. Thus Billy Glass tells us that in analyzing Venus' history planetary scientists accept, "the geologic history of Venus...based primarily on what we have learned about the other planets and is necessarily highly speculative. We assume that Venus was formed 4.5 x 10 9 y ago." (4.5 billion years ago) (37)
_The Missing Venusian Regolith
_Geophysicists, in order to explain the physical nature of the Venusian surface, offer the supposition that between 100 million and a billion years ago the entire planet turned itself inside out. If one were to accept this assumption it would require that over that period of time between the covering of the surface with lava flows and the present, erosional forces would break down the surface rock into detritus to form a regolith. The problem for the space scientists is that there is no evidence of a regolith covering the Venusian surface. Moreover, in view of the nature of the highly acidic nature of the atmosphere it is obvious that there has been significant erosion of the surface. According to Bruce Murray et al., "there can be little doubt that chemical weathering must be very effective on Venus' surface." (38) Venus' atmosphere is known to contain hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acid, both of which are very corrosive. Paolo Maffei explains further that, "the atmosphere of Venus also contains-- although in small amounts-- hydrogen chloride and hydrogen fluoride, which reacting with sulfuric acid [known to exist in Venus' atmosphere could form fluosulfuric acid, a very strong acid capable of attacking and dissolving almost all common materials including most rocks." (39) According to the scientists, Venus has been subjected to this intense weathering of its surface for at least 100 million years. Over this period of time the planet should have developed a covering of weathered material. Nevertheless, George McGill et al., inform us that: Radar and Venera lander observations imply that most of the surface of Venus cannot be covered by unconsolidated wind blown deposits; bulk densities on near surface materials are not consistent with aeolian sediments. Thus present-day wind-blown sediments cannot form a continuous layer over the entire planet. (40) Thus, despite the fact that erosional processes are clearly at work on Venus' surface, there is no evidence of a regolith. Bruce Murray, in dealing with this enigma wonders: Russian close-ups of Venus were surprising. I had presumed that its surface was buried under a uniform blanket of soil and dust. Chemical weathering should be intense in such a hot and acid environment. Unknown processes of topographic renewal evidently manage to outstrip degradation and burial (41) [emphasis added. In order to explain the lack of a Venusian regolith the scientists imagine a process that has no scientific basis for its action to reconsolidate the detritus on Venus. Nevertheless, let us assume that Venus' erosion rate is extremely weak and that it is not turned back into rock at the surface by unknown processes. What do we find? If we allow a tiny erosion rate of one millimeter per hundred years, then in 100 thousand years we produce one meter of loose material on the surface of Venus, which is equal to about 40 inches. However, in 100 million years we generate a kilometer of detritus, which is over 3000 feet of this loose material. Under no known condition can this much matter at the surface be turned to solid rock, and this is admitted by the scientists. What we find at the surface of Venus is the detritus of an erosion rate that is only a few thousand years old. Only by ignoring this clear evidence can the astronomers support the view that Venus' surface reflects events tracing to processes occurring between 100 million and one billion years ago. Although Magellan has cast doubt upon most of the scientific establishment's predictions regarding the nature of Venus' surface, a belief in a 4.5 billion year old age of the planet Venus is still enshrined as dogma. In accordance with this theory, it is believed by the space scientists that the degradation of craters on Venus' surface must have occurred over hundreds of millions of years. As the situation on Io proves, however, degradation does not require long time periods. Io's craters decay over extraordinarily short time periods measured in weeks or months. On Venus this period might take years. Based on the indications (cited above) that both Venus and Io are molten at shallow depth and are highly volcanic, Venus' craters would by no stretch of the imagination require millions of years to degrade. How then do scientists explain the fact that Venus' craters look so pristine? Here Kerr observes: Magellan scientists strove to explain the paradox of young looking craters on a relatively old surface. They raised the possibility that several hundred million years ago, a planet-wide outpouring wiped the slate clean, drowning any existing craters in a flood of lava. Then the flood would have had to turn off fairly abruptly so the craters formed by subsequent impacts would remain pristine. But such a global episode of volcanism generates another mystery. How could Venusian volcanic activity ebb so abruptly? (42) No doubt there will be other, equally imaginative, scenarios advanced in order to explain away this dilemma of so few craters showing signs of decay. To return to Kerr: But surface remodeling is going on after all, Magellan scientists told a large crowd at the AGU [American Geological Union meeting. More recent images show the ravages of time, but in a fashion that leaves few aged craters."(emphasis added) This is not so much an explanation of the findings as a directive that the evidence is to be interpreted as such. This is not the only problem, however. Again we cite Kerr: The expanded view reveals four nearly continent-sized areas, ranging from a few million to 5 million square kilometers, that have no impact craters at all. According to Magellan team member Roger Phillips of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, the absence of impact craters-- despite a steady rain of asteroids and comets onto the Venusian surface-- means that in the recent geologic past the craters were wiped out either by lava flooding across these areas or by tectonic faulting, stretching and compression. The volcanic activity required to resurface the crater-free regions would be impressive by any standards, Phillips says. For example, it took at least a million cubic kilometers of lava over a few million years to produce the 66-million-year-old Deccan Traps of India. But the lava-covered areas already uncovered on a small part of Venus by Magellan must have all formed within the past few tens of millions of years to have escaped being marked by impact craters. (43) So Magellan scientists are still left with an enigma. What is clearly implied by the radar and photographic evidence is that immense outpourings of lava have occurred over huge areas of Venus' surface, covering over everything including craters. The scientists still cannot explain why there are so few craters that are degraded or flooded or why Venus suddenly poured out its lava in oceanic amounts. But all of this is clearly what one would expect to find from the theory that Velikovsky advanced in Worlds in Collision whereby Venus was only recently subjected to tremendous stresses and participated in numerous clashes with other planets.
_Iron
_As a newborn planet, Venus would not have fully differentiated so it remains possible that all its iron has yet to sink to its core. Accordingly, it was reported in Astronomy that: Maxwell Montes...poses a big problem in interpretation. Parts have electrical properties that indicate the surface contains "flakes" of some unknown mineral, most likely iron sulfides, iron oxides, or magnetite. Iron sulfides (" fool's gold") fit the observations best, but studies have shown that they would be quickly destroyed by the corrosive Venusian atmosphere. Iron oxides (such as hematite) and magnetite are also possible, but the presence of either is not easy to account for. (44) If indeed iron is to be found upon the surface of Venus it would support the claim that it is a youthful planet in the early stages of cooling. (45) A planet that had differentiated its iron into its central core would not be expected to pour iron onto the surface with volcanic materials. The reason that the iron compounds have not completely corroded in Venus' corrosive atmosphere, most probably, is that these outpourings of iron are extremely recent surface coverings measured in perhaps a few years. Iron on Venus' surface is clear evidence that supports Velikovsky.
_Argon
_The superabundance of 36 Argon, and the tiny amount of 40 Ar, are glaring puzzles for the conventional view of Venus' history but perfectly consistent with Velikovsky's view that Venus is a youthful planet. As Glass explains, the 40 Argon builds up over time by the breakdown of 40 Potassium: The ratio of the mass of radiogenic 40 Ar to the mass of Venus is smaller by amount of a factor of 15 than the value for the Earth. Since 40 Ar within a planet increases with time due to radio active decay of 40 K, the amount of 40 Ar should be higher if the primary outgassing took place late in the planet's history. (46) If Venus did not outgas much 40 Ar over time why did it outgas so much 36 Argon? If Venus lost nearly all its 40 Ar why did it retain 36 Argon? If, on the other hand, the great outflowings of lava released great amounts of 36 Argon why didn't these outpourings also release large amounts of 40 Ar?
_Oxygen
_Ultraviolet radiation photodissociates CO 2, SO 2 and H 2 O; over millions of years oxygen should have become plentiful in Venus' atmosphere, but it remains a minute constituent. Venus' water vapor cannot have escaped in less than 20 billion years. Where then is Venus' water? To argue Venus had no water but retains other volatiles is a basic contradiction. Moreover, Venus' middle atmosphere should have been converted to CO 2 and O 2 over a few thousand years, yet this is not the case. To argue that the Sun's magnetic flow implants and removes gases is based on assumptions that have never been proven and does not address all the problems of the other gases which exist and are unrelated to the solar wind. A similar problem surrounds the prevalence of hydrofluoric and hydrochloric acids. Both of these acids are neutralized by new surface rock; oxygen, on the other hand, will unite with new surface rock. If nearly all of Venus' oxygen was removed by uniting with new outflows of molten rock why didn't these great outflowings neutralize all the hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acid? The lack of abundant oxygen on Venus and the existence of hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acid are only congruent with one theory-- that of Immanuel Velikovsky.
_The Greenhouse Effect
_For years the scientific community has maintained that the great heat of Venus is derived from an atmospheric greenhouse effect. Gary Hunt and Patrick Moore outline the ingredients necessary to generate a large and powerful greenhouse on Venus: CO 2 is responsible for about 55% of the trapped heat. A further 25% is due to the presence of water vapor, while SO 2 which constitutes only 0.02% [2/100 of a per cent of the atmosphere, traps 5% of remaining infrared radiation. The remaining 15% of the greenhouse is due to the clouds and hazes which surround the planet. (47) While carbon dioxide is certainly present on Venus, it can account for only 55% of the greenhouse effect. As Barrie Jones explains, other factors are also necessary to make the greenhouse work: Efficient trapping [of heat cannot be produced by CO 2 alone, in spite of the enormous mass of CO 2 in the atmosphere. This is because CO 2 is fairly transparent over certain wavelength ranges to planetary wavelengths. Radiation could escape through these "windows" in sufficient quantities to greatly reduce the greenhouse effect below that which exists. It is by blocking of these windows by SO 2, by H 2 O and by the clouds that greatly increases the greenhouse effect. (48) In short, it is crucial to the runaway greenhouse effect that there be sufficient water, sulfur dioxide, and haze to maintain the heat holding capacity of the planet. Respecting water, especially in the lower atmosphere, the scientists have been looking for this vapor for a very long time. As late as September 1991, water vapor has not been found in anything like that amount needed to support the contention that the greenhouse is a foregone conclusion. According to R. Cowan: A research team has focused on the greenhouse puzzle...The absence of water vapor above Venus' cloud banks mystifies scientists because models of the planet's strong greenhouse effect suggest that [water vapor plays a key role in maintaining the warming. Researchers have now looked for water below the cloud bank and down to the surface-- and their search has come up dry. Evidence of a dry Venus may force researchers to consider whether other chemicals could create and sustain the planet's greenhouse effect, says David Crisp of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who coauthored the new report. (49) Now when a vapor responsible for 25% of the efficiency of the greenhouse-effect has been sought in vain for some 20 years it implies that a major problem exists with the model in question. Furthermore, in our earlier discussion of the SO 2 and haze in the Venusian atmosphere we have shown that measurements indicate that these materials are transient products and do not sustain themselves for long periods of time. With this additional undermining of the greenhouse effect the process becomes more and more difficult to imagine. One of the major theoretical supports of the greenhouse model is the belief that Venus is in thermal balance. Over and over we are told that measurements of the cloud tops for infrared emissions show conclusively that the amount of sunlight incident on the planet is equal to the infrared radiation emitted by Venus. However, this must also be supported by in situ measurements throughout the atmosphere: Radiative balance occurs [on a planet at every level when the amount of downward-directed solar radiation that is absorbed is equal to the amount of infrared radiation that is emitted upward. When local temperatures satisfy this balance the atmospheric temperature is maintained. (emphasis added) (50) Not only must there be thermal balance at one level of the atmosphere, this thermal balance must exist at all levels throughout the atmosphere to confirm thermal balance. That this is not the case upon Venus has been known for some time. As long ago as 1980 Richard Kerr reported in Science that: When [4 Pioneer Venus probes looked at the temperature, each one found more energy being radiated up from the lower atmosphere than enters it as sunlight. To further complicate the situation, the size of the apparent upward flow of energy varies from place to place by a factor of 2 which was a disturbing discovery. (51) Kerr adds a telling and fundamental observation in this regard: "The much ballyhooed greenhouse effect of Venus can account for only part of the heating." (52) [emphasis added This simply means that the measured evidence from in situ probes precludes the possibility that Venus is in thermal balance. Since this evidence was confirmed by four probes it is highly unlikely that each probe could have been in error. What is most significant is the variation from place to place, the amount of heat rising varying at some places by a factor of 2. Thus, if in one region of Venus' atmosphere the temperature was x degrees, in another area it was 2x degrees. This means that there was at least twice the amount of heat coming up at 2x than could have been supplied by the greenhouse effect. It is most unlikely that in one region of Venus' atmosphere the greenhouse effect is twice as strong as in the other regions.
_Conclusion
_A fair reading of history will show that conventional astronomers have a very poor record when it comes to predicting the surface conditions of Venus. Such is not the case with regards to the thesis outlined by Immanuel Velikovsky in 1950. As this essay has sought to show, the evidence from Venus is fully consistent with the thesis of its anomalous origin and tumultuous recent history as set forth in Worlds in Collision. Indeed, it is this author's sincere hope that the day will come when members of the scientific community will find the courage and integrity to call for a full and proper investigation of Velikovsky's hypothesis.
*** References
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Re: Mathis on Velikovsky +
« Reply #4 on: December 24, 2018, 11:44:28 pm »
Evidence for the Extreme Youth of Venus [SIS C&C Review]
From: SIS Chronology& Catastrophism Review (1994) "Proceedings of the 1993 Cambridge Conference"

_Evidence for the Extreme Youth of Venus, Wal Thornhill
_"The purpose of the Universe is the perpetual astonishment of mankind."- Arthur C. Clarke "Person who say it cannot be done should not interrupt person doing it."- spurious Chinese proverb
_Introduction
_The planet Venus is the brightest object in the sky- after the Sun and the Moon. Astronomers repeatedly refer to it as Earth's 'twin' [1. They should not- for twins are always born close together in time and there is no evidence to support their assumption that the two planets are of the same age. I will show instead that Venus has the hallmarks of a recent genesis. What do I mean by 'recent'? By recent I mean too recent to be measured in millions, let alone billions of years: more likely the event occurred within human memory and its age can be measured in thousands of years. What is meant by 'genesis'? At least it means the final chapters of the interaction between an errant, cometary Venus and other planets of the Solar System and its final settlement into a highly regular, planetary orbit about the Sun. At most it hints at the parturition of one of the gas giant planets to form the new planet Venus. The implications of such a late and spectacular event in the Solar System are profound. It will be difficult to contemplate by those who have built the current cosmogonic consensus. That consensus is built upon ad hoc additions to centuries-old ideas. It relies on gravity as the aggregating force acting over millions of years upon widely dispersed material to form the Solar System. Clearly, in the current steady state of the Solar System, gravitational theory seems to predict planet orbits accurately. Not only does the clockwork certainty make life easier for the mathematicians but it also makes the world seem safe. However, reality has a way of being much more complex than mathematical models: there is evidence, in particular from the behaviour of comets, that non-gravitational forces are also at work in the Solar System. Establishing a very recent and drastic change in the Solar System would cause reverberations in every field of study. As a recent example, scientists have pointed to the hellish surface conditions on Venus and have warned that the Earth could suffer the same fate as a result of rapacious human activity. Such an argument assumes that the genesis of Venus was similar to that of Earth but that the two evolved very differently. A quite different interpretation would result from the youthful Venus theory: that the Earth's biosphere seems to have a remarkable capacity to recover from catastrophe attendant upon a recent rearrangement of the inner Solar System. In turn, this would indicate that the biosphere, even now, may not be in a steady state, which has been suggested on theoretical grounds [2. Venus, Earth's twin? If Venus is a newcomer to its present orbit in the inner Solar System, it is necessary to dismiss the oft-quoted idea of it being a twin of Earth. This idea arose from their relative proximity in the inner Solar System and almost equal size and mass. Couple these facts with the nebular theory of planet formation (from a disk of gas and dust encircling the proto-sun) and we have Earth being formed at nearly the same time and from almost the same materials as Venus. The mean distances of the two planets from the centre of the Sun differ by about 25%, which would lead to an expected initial difference in composition of the same order. Then why does Venus have almost no water and Earth an abundance? Why does Venus have a much higher content of primordial inert gases? The astronomer V. A. Firsoff wrote: "I once described Earth and Venus as 'non-identical twins'. It used to be thought that their differences were more apparent than real. But in the words of Sherlock Holmes, 'Eliminate the impossible and what is left, however improbable, is the truth'. And it would be hard to find a more improbable planet than Venus." [3 Predictably, planetary geologists take the 'Earth's twin' approach and are thereby forced to make the faintly absurd pronouncement: 'The overall impression is that Venus is a dynamic world that has been shaped by processes fundamentally similar to those that have taken place on the Earth, but often with dramatically different results' [4. This can only be true if one accepts qualifiers like 'somehow' and 'mysteriously' as scientific descriptions of processes on Venus. More likely it indicates that our ideas of the relationship between geological cause and effect on the Earth may be wrong. Dr S. R. Taylor, a planetologist of the Australian National University Research School of Earth Sciences, summed up a lecture titled 'Venus:- a twin planet?' [5 by stating: "You are not looking at a twin planet to the Earth at all; there are very many substantial differences....the differences are so great it makes you wonder whether you could ever produce a twin of the Earth in some other solar system when you can't do it in your own." Venus, the improbable planet So, what is now known about Venus? The following sections give a brief summary of the space age findings and the accepted interpretations:-
_1. Magnetosphere
_A planet's magnetosphere is the region in space surrounding the planet where its magnetic field dominates. Under the influence of the solar wind it is compressed on the sunward side of the planet and stretches away behind the planet like a comet's tail. The dynamo theory of planetary magnetic fields supposes that they are generated by an internal dynamo created by fluid motions in a metallic outer core. The early Mariner spacecraft provided a surprise when they found an extensive 'cometary' magnetotail stretching behind Venus [6 along the Sun-Venus line. It is longer than that found for any other planet. The 'scale length' of the tail is about 700, compared to Earth's less than 300. [The scale length is the {} of Earth, the tail wake stretches for 3000 Earth radii (R E) and the magnetosphere varies between 10 and 15 R E. Atmospheric ions are stripped away from Venus in its tail. Venus appears to have no intrinsic magnetic field. This finding was unexpected because the dynamo theory would predict a small field for Venus, given its slow rotation and molten core. (The dynamo theory also fails to explain why slowly rotating Mercury has a magnetic field. That planet is not believed to have a molten core). The magnetic flux of the solar wind appears to interact directly with the ionosphere of Venus. This was not anticipated either, and is unlike all other planets in the solar family. Spikes in the Pioneer Venus orbiter magnetometer readings were interpreted as twisted magnetic field lines wrapped around each other like ropes. Alternatively, the magnetic field spikes may be induced in the ionosphere by electric current flows in the solar wind. Another major surprise is the presence of an ionosphere on the night side of Venus. Ionospheres are thought to be created by dissociation of atoms in the upper atmosphere by the action of solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation. It was thought that the long Venusian night would be long enough for recombination to take place and for the ionosphere there to disappear.
_2. Rotation
_Venus has a retrograde axial rotation period of 243 days. It is assumed, because it so different to the Earth's rotation rate, that it must have been similar at some time in the past and then drastically modified as a result of a of a very large collision. There is no generally accepted theory to explain planetary rotation or axial tilt. Strangely, Venus always presents the same hemisphere to the Earth at times of inferior conjunction.
_3. Isotopic anomalies
_Three isotopes of argon are considered important in investigations of planetary atmospheres. 40 Ar is produced by the decay of radioactive potassium( 40 K) in the planet's rocks and is outgassed into the atmosphere over time. Venus has only of the amount of 40 Ar found in the Earth's atmosphere. The other isotopes, 36 Ar and 38 Ar are thought to be primordial gases, present when the planet formed. 36 Ar appears in proportions up to 100 times that found on Earth or Mars. Since it cannot be created after a planet's formation, if Venus was formed in the way the Earth and Mars were it should have an equal or lower concentration. There is also about 45 times more neon and 3 times more krypton in the atmosphere of Venus. Its atmosphere shows a deuterium to hydrogen ratio of about 100 times that of the Earth which, it is argued, might be consistent with the loss of oceans of water and the preferential outgassing of the lighter hydrogen. But such a mechanism does not easily remove the last vestiges of water to leave such a dry atmosphere. The isotopic abundances do not follow the expected pattern for planet formation from a nebula. For example, Venus, being nearer the Sun than Earth and Mars, should have lost more 36 Ar to the early, strong solar wind than those planets.
_4. Atmosphere
_None of the the characteristics of the Venusian atmosphere were predicted by prevailing cosmogonic theories. Venus has a planet-wide cloud cover and massive atmosphere which is remarkably uniform in temperature and pressure at all latitudes and in both day and night hemispheres. With a gravity 90% of the Earth's and being closer to the Sun, Venus would be expected to have retained less volatiles and hence have a thinner (not thicker) atmosphere than the Earth. The Venusian atmospheric composition is shown below. Atmosphere Earth Venus 77% nitrogen 21% oxygen 1% water vapour 97% carbon dioxide 2% nitrogen 1% oxygen Ammonia (0.1 percent) was detected by the Soviet probe, Venus 8, at the height of the clouds. Hydrocarbons of many sorts showed up in the initial evaluation of the mass spectrometer on board the Pioneer atmospheric probes but were discounted as lingering instrumental residues [7. Clouds occupy several discrete layers, at heights typically 46, 47-49, 50-55, and 56-62 kilometres above the surface (clouds on Earth rarely top 15km altitude), with the uppermost, yellowish, cirrus-like haze made from droplets of concentrated sulphuric acid. Since sulphuric acid does not account for the yellowish colour of the clouds, this deduction is suspect. It is this uppermost layer that is responsible for the markings visible in UV images. It has also been found that a major constituent of large cloud particles is chlorine. The highly reflective upper haze effectively hides lower levels rather like a veil in bright sunlight hides a bride's face. The clouds below are not as opaque as earthly clouds but are more akin to photochemical smog. Investigators had expected that only 2% of the total incident sunlight would reach the surface and that the atmosphere would be super-refractive. Neither is the case: it is surprisingly bright at the surface and pictures by Veneras 9 and 10 showed the horizon 200-300m distant. Cloud movements show a 4 day rotation period of the upper atmosphere at the equator which declines to 2 days towards the poles. This is explained by a constant wind velocity on a reducing perimeter as the upper atmosphere spirals up to the poles. However, with a rotation period of the planet of 243 days retrograde and sluggish surface winds, the upper atmospheric movement is incomprehensible. The negligible variation in surface temperature is explained theoretically in astronomical textbooks by slow winds in the dense lower atmosphere of 1 to 2 metres/sec from the poles to the equator [8. There are three reasons why this explanation is unsound: i). Since the planet is now the same temperature overall there is no heat engine to drive the lower atmosphere. ii). Moving patterns detected in two specific windows for infrared radiation through the carbon dioxide atmosphere indicate that the lower clouds are patchy and move at velocities up to 250kph [9. iii). Winds at the surface are slow (about 6kph) and always in the direction of rotation, not from pole to equator. In 1972, a 'breathing' phenomenon was discovered in the Venusian atmosphere [10. It is as if the cloud cover is acting like the lid on a kettle of boiling water; the infrared CO> 2 lines swing through a four day cycle akin to a relaxation oscillation which builds up slowly during each cycle and then collapses. This indicates that the cloud deck moves up and down through 1 km over the entire planet. Such a phenomenon requires considerable energy input- which is difficult to account for on a very slowly rotating planet if solar energy is the only source. The 'breathing' has been confirmed by the Magellan orbiter which underwent variable atmospheric braking at the lowest point of its orbit, with a 4 day cycle. Explanations of the Venusian atmosphere have required large numbers of assumptions and special conditions to be imposed on the hypothetical early solar nebula and the activity of the proto-sun. Many anomalies remain.
_5. Heat balance
_The rocks of the Earth contain radioactive uranium, thorium and potassium-40 which in the process of decay provide energy to heat up the planet's interior. The potassium/uranium ratio is about the same on Venus as on the Earth. It is therefore assumed, on the grounds that the two planets are twins, that the internal heat production is the same. The very high surface temperature of Venus of 750 K or 900 F is usually explained by the 'greenhouse effect' of CO 2, or even the 'runaway greenhouse effect', first suggested by Fred Hoyle in 1955 and worked out in detail in the late 1960s by Ingersoll and Pollack of Caltech. Such explanations also rely on the assumption that both Venus and Earth have had largely parallel development (twins again) and that therefore something went seriously wrong with the atmospheric evolution on Venus. Firsoff noted:  "Earth's seas are not boiling hot, despite the total greenhouse effect of water and average sunlight stronger than at the ground level of Venus. Nor is it at all clear how such a condition could have become established" [11 Venus receives 1.9 times more solar radiation than Earth but its clouds reflect about 80% of that sunlight, so that Venus actually absorbs less solar energy than the Earth. Solar radiation measured at the surface is 10-20W/m 2 (compare this with 340W/m 2 at the Earth's surface in the tropics). Even with the maximum greenhouse effect, the effective surface temperature of Venus should be low enough to freeze water [12. What is being asked of the 'runaway greenhouse effect' is equivalent to expecting a well-insulated oven to reach a temperature sufficient to melt lead by having only the pilot light switched on! The humorous but sadly apt inversion, 'I'll see it when I believe it', seems to apply to the interpretation of results relayed to Earth from all four Pioneer lander probes as their radiometers began to give anomalous results as they descended through the atmosphere. "Taken at face value, the anomalies suggest that parts of the atmosphere are transmitting about twice the energy upwards that is available from solar radiation at the same level." [13 Despite the obvious interpretation that the laws of thermodynamics are not being violated and that, simply, Venus is intrinsically hot and still cooling, the investigators are able to blandly state in the same paragraph: "In spite of these difficulties in interpreting some of the observations, the greenhouse effect, coupled with global dynamics, is now well established as the basic explanation of the high surface temperature." On the night side of Venus where sunlight reflected from the uppermost haze cannot dazzle the observer, it is possible to see surprisingly deeply into the planet's atmosphere. The only illumination is the infrared radiation from the planet's hot surface which is almost sufficiently intense to be seen as a very dull red glow. Cloud patterns picked out in infrared are intense enough to be seen during inferior conjunction (in broad daylight) from Earth using a suitably equipped 20cm telescope. The emissivity of the surface at the Magellan radar wavelength, which corresponds to surface electrical properties and surface temperature, correlates strongly with altitude. There are some exceptions to this pattern. High altitude temperatures are often much lower than would be expected on the basis of the adiabatic lapse rate of minus 9 K/km. The conventional view is that the higher emissivity is largely due to the surface chemical composition being different in the highlands. The greenhouse effect would have the surface temperature conforming to the lapse rate. Figure 1. A typical Venusian sinuous rille. The scale bar= 10km. They tend to grow narrow and shallow towards their termini. They are widely distributed in the equatorial regions.
_6. Lightning
_"The most striking [the pun seems unintended observations made by the Galileo spacecraft during its flyby of Venus was evidence of lightning." [14 The surprise is curious. Earlier reports of lightning were discounted, it seems, because they did not fit the pattern of earthly lightning. The Venera spacecraft found 'continuous lightning activity from 32km down to about 2km altitude, with discharges as frequent as an amazing 25 per second' [15. The highest recorded rate on Earth is 1.4/sec during a severe blizzard [16. The Pioneer lander recorded 1000 radio impulses. Thirty-two minutes after landing, Venera 11 detected a very loud (82 decibel) noise which was believed to be thunder. Garry Hunt suggested at the time that:'... the Venusians may well be glowing from the nearly continuous discharges of those frequent lightning strokes' [17. A 'mysterious glow' was detected coming from the surface at a height of 16km by 2 Pioneer probes as they descended on the night hemisphere. The glow increased on descent and may have been caused by a form of St. Elmo's fire and/or chemical reactions in the atmosphere, close to the surface. Lightning is poorly understood. The mechanism of charging of storm clouds remains a mystery. Because lightning is conventionally associated with violent vertical cloud movement on Earth, it was a surprise when investigators found strong evidence of lightning in the quiescent atmosphere of Venus. 'On Venus the clouds tend to resemble fogbanks,.... You don't see much lightning in fog.' [18
_7. Volcanism
_Venus seems to have about 4 times more sulphuric acid in its atmosphere than Earth. It also has minute concentrations of hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acids. These findings suggest lively, recent volcanic activity on the planet. There are between 100,000 and 200,000 small basaltic domes (averaging a few hundred metres high and 2km across), rather like underwater sea mounts. Some appear to have explosively erupted, judging by radar-bright deposits or 'plumes' of material broadening away from them. Venus apparently has very fluid lavas. Venusian sinuous rilles have been identified (Figure 1) in large numbers. These rilles are thought to be due to erosional processes involving very hot, fluid lavas. Smooth basaltic plains and lava flows, relatively unmarked by craters, make up 80% of the planet's surface- indicating its extreme youthfulness. There are 430 volcanoes of 19km or more diameter and tens of thousands of small ones. There is an enigma in that there are relatively few craters which have been encroached upon by lava. This would suggest that the craters, most of which look very new, are of more recent origin than the global lava flows. There is no satisfactory explanation for a resurfacing event which involved the entire planet. The word 'resurfacing' itself assumes there once existed an older cratered terrain- but, again, there is no evidence for that. There are many curious features on Venus which are attributed to upwelling lava. For example, there are large circular domes (750 metres high and averaging 25km diameter), often arranged in a chain, with craters and a complex pattern of 'fractures' on top. See Figure 2. These objects are interpreted as a thick lava flow which welled up through openings on level ground, although it is difficult to understand why they should all be so near perfect circles. Such circularity requires too many special conditions to be plausible. The lava orifice would need to be circular, the surface dead level with no obstructions, and the lava viscosity and cooling rate within very narrow limits. Compare the domes with the lobate structure of a true lava flow in Figure 3. The dome fractures are thought to be caused by the cracking of solidified surface lava by further outflows. It is strange that the fractures seem to be of relatively uniform width on widely separated domes. Also some 'fractures' in the surrounding plain appear to climb the wall of a dome and continue across the top (see Figure 2). Small craters appear on top of  the domes, generally in the centre and even smaller craters seem to populate the fractures. The surrounding plain is unmarked by craters, with the notable exception being along the floors of fractures. Figure 2. Seven circular 'domes' averaging 25km in diameter with maximum heights of 750m in Alpha Regio. North is at the top. The linear features are termed 'fractures'. Note the small craters populating the floors of some of them. The long channel in the southeast has a secondary channel along its floor. Figure 3. Multiple eruptions appear in this volcanic structure, located on the plains between Artemis Chasma and Imdr Regio. The central dome structure is 100km wide and about 450m thick on average. Note the usual uneven, lobate form.
_8. Cratering
_Craters are randomly distributed on Venus with some areas of higher or lower density. Surprisingly, most are in pristine condition. As expected, most craters are described in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's images as 'meteorite impact craters' and their features as 'typical..., including rough (bright) material around the rim, terraced inner walls, and central peaks.' [19 The central peaks are termed 'rebound' peaks. The largest craters may show concentric rings. Venus has a relatively low crater count which is attributed to both a global volcanic resurfacing event and the planet's thick atmosphere acting as a shield against small meteors. However, small craters do exist and are found populating the floors of the numerous linear 'fractures', which argues against their formation by impact. The insistence on describing craters as impact-generated is more due to the fact that it is geologists making such pronouncements and that they have difficulty matching the craters with volcanoes observed on Earth. Significantly, astronomers tend to ascribe the craters to volcanic activity, which indicates that neither group feel comfortable with an explanation based on processes with which they are familiar. Two characteristics of so-called impact craters which beg explanation are their near-perfect circularity and the melted floors of large, recent craters, clear of impact debris. Despite this, counting craters is the main technique for determining the age of a planet's surface. It also relies on assumptions about the past population of orbit-crossing comets and meteors in the inner Solar System. "The planetary geologists who are studying the radar images streaming back from Magellan find they have an enigma on their hands. When they read the geologic clock that tells them how old the Venusian surface is they find a planet on the brink of adolescence. But when they look at the surface itself, they see a newborn babe... Magellan scientists have been struck by the newly minted appearances of the craters formed...." [20 Crater counting and the random distribution puts the entire surface age at 500 million years. It is therefore generally concluded that any old surface was wiped clean by a cataclysmic event at that time and remained volcanically quiet since then. The high degree of circularity of most craters suggests that whatever created them acted largely perpendicular to the surface, which is highly unlikely for impacts. Such crater circularity is also a feature on our Moon, the moons of Mars (Figure 4), oddly shaped asteroids, and the nucleus of comet Halley where the cratering process may have been observed in action  (Figure 5). Figure 4. View of the 17km long asteroid 951 Gaspra (top), taken by the Galileo spacecraft. The smallest details are 55 metres across. Deimos (left) and Phobos (right), the moons of Mars, are shown for comparison. Note the craterlets on the rim of the large crater on Phobos. Figure 5. An artist's enhancement of the images of the nucleus of comet Halley taken by the Giotto spacecraft. Notice the bright circular spots and jets. Figure 6. Three large craters with diameters from 37 to 50km are seen in this image from the Lavinia region. Note the truncated ejecta fields around the craters. Asymmetric ejecta patterns have been cited as evidence for impact at an angle to the vertical. Some craters (Figure 6) have a flower-like ejecta blanket which did not travel very far, presumably due to the high atmospheric density. Mars shows similar features which were attributed to the action of water. Since Venus has no water that theory cannot be relevant. There are a number of asymmetric craters which do hint at impact. They show possible effects of the thick atmosphere on the way that meteors reach the surface or the manner in which the ejecta blankets are distributed. Many craters seem to be flooded from below with lava which is presumed to exist in hot layers just beneath the thin crust of Venus.
_9. Plate tectonics
_The surface of Venus has been described as 'spotty'. There are no apparent equivalents of our continental plates. There is only flimsy evidence for some form of plate subduction around the rims of pimple-like elevations called coronae but the origin of the coronae is a mystery. They have been described as magma extrusion features. There is no evidence of a mid-ocean type ridge on Venus to generate new crust. The situation was summed up recently in New Scientist: "The high-resolution radar images Magellan has produced show no evidence of the long chains of volcanoes, and no mid-ocean ridges or other features that would indicate a global system of plates." [21 Venus has rocks similar to those on Earth and possibly more internal heat which would be expected to lead to more dynamic tectonic activity. One suggestion is that the surface of Venus is too hot to sustain rigid plates and that the surface puckers and wrinkles in response to interior forces. Another flimsy idea is that the lack of water on Venus means that it lacks the essential lubricant for sliding crustal plates [22. The many differences between the crusts of Earth and Venus suggest an unusual event to have caused the observed continental rifting on Earth. The assumed driving mechanism for continental drift is mantle convection due to internal radiogenic heat. But it is a very unsatisfactory explanation given the rigidity of the crust and modest heat input which would lead to a low velocity of convection [23. There is no good evidence that anything other than settling movements between plates are now taking place on Earth, long after some past catastrophic rifting 'event(s)'. Rifting is most easily explained by external torques on the Earth. Surface features on Venus, interpreted as fractures, suggest crustal expansion with few signs of compression. The size and spacing of wrinkles is believed to give an indication of the crustal thickness. Venus has 'smaller, more closely spaced features than any previously seen' [24, which argues for a thin crust. But there is another possibility- that the so-called fracture lines are not fractures at all but channels, gouged out  of the surface by a mechanism to be described later. Gravity mapping is to be undertaken by Magellan after its orbit is lowered by atmospheric braking, and then circularised. Such mapping should provide more clues to the structure of Venus. Already it is believed that the prominent Maxwell Montes region should subside under self gravity in a relatively short time.
_10. Channels and valleys
_Venus appears to be laced with fractures, ranging from elaborate networks of fine cracks that extend over large areas of the planet to extensive canyons  thousands of miles long. Up to 200 channels of various types (some clusters being counted as a unit) have been counted. They are concentrated in the equatorial regions and particularly the highlands, rift and fracture zones associated with large shield volcanoes, and the uniquely Venusian coronae. Twelve valleys have been counted. They have been classified as either labyrinthic, rectangular, and irregular or pitted. Some valleys graduate into channels. Simple, non-branching channels have been classified as sinuous rilles, channels with flow margins, and canali [25. Figure 7a. The meandering channel known as the river Styx. It is 6,800km long but practically constant in width at about 2km. The scale bar= 50km. Figure 7b. Detail of river Styx. Note the indications of a smaller channel in the bed of the 'river'.Sinuous rilles generally originate in depressions up to a few hundred meters deep. The channel is cut into the terrain and grows narrower and shallower distally, with no outflow deposit. They  are the most numerous channel type and seem to be concentrated near coronae and arachnoid features. They are thought to be due, in some degree, to "a process of lava drainage channel deepening and widening through thermal-mechanical erosion by high temperature, low viscosity lava during a sustained eruption at high effusion rates" [26. There are severe problems with this proposal. For example, outwash deposits are generally lacking and the channel narrows rather than widens at the lower end. The channels are often preferentially cratered compared with  the surrounding terrain. They are probably too deeply cut into the surface (several hundred metres) to be explained by lava drainage. The dimensions of the Venusian sinuous rilles are far greater than any lava channels seen on Earth. Channels with flow margins occur on volcanic flow deposits. They are shallow and do not cut into the terrain like sinuous rilles. They are consistent with a lava flow origin. Canali are the next most common channel type. They are extraordinarily long, have remarkably constant width and depth  and a lack of complex branching. Canali are found on the smooth plains and trend in random directions. The longest canali are confined to specific plains. There is generally no way of distinguishing which end of the channel is the source and there is no evidence of ponding. Narrow levees can be discerned on some of the radar images. Suggestions for their origin struggle with enormous flows of long duration of exotic, highly fluid lavas on a scale not seen on any other body in the Solar System. Since  there is no evidence of any outflow of the canali it is suggested that successive outflows of lava or weathering has obliterated the sources and sinks of the canali! One of the most bizarre canali is the remarkably long and narrow Hildr Fossa, which Magellan scientists have nicknamed the River Styx (Figure 7). The feature has no analogue on Earth. With a constant width of less than 2km, Hildr is 6,800km long! Slightly longer than the Nile, it is the longest channel known in the Solar System. What is even more weird for a channel which is assumed to have been formed by the flow of some unspecified extremely hot, thin liquid is that it runs up hill and down dale by as much as a kilometre in a roller-coaster fashion. It has been suggested that the terrain must have undergone uplift since the channel was formed. But practically all of the many 'rifts' and channels on Venus exhibit the same disregard for gravity without signs of channel disturbance which would be expected from extensive  ground movement. In the searing heat and crushing pressure at the planet's surface, it is impossible to imagine any substance that could remain liquid long enough to carve out such a lengthy, uniform channel, to somehow disappear along the way and defy gravity in the process! Unremarked by investigators is a secondary, even more sinuous, channel meandering along the floor of Hildr (and most other channels and fractures where image resolution allows) with what appears to be small craterlets dotted along its length. This looks like a  more extensive form of the sinuous rilles. The bright radar echo from both sides of these channels and the shadow behind the top of the radar illuminated bank suggests that the banks are narrow, raised levees [27. The channels and valleys on Venus are assumed to be erosional features caused by a flowing liquid. The only liquid expected at the surface temperature of Venus is lava. Few of the features observed can be explained by lava flows.
_11. Surface age
_It is to be expected that the surface has not suffered from much erosion. With a year-round temperature at the surface of 470 degrees C, surface water, if there ever was any, has long ago boiled away leaving a totally dry and arid landscape. Winds in the lower atmosphere are also very sluggish due to the even temperature and high atmospheric density near the surface. So impact craters and scars from geologic events should remain visible for millions or billions of years. Using accepted assumptions about impact cratering rates in the inner Solar System, it is assumed that the surface age can be determined by crater counting. Scientists were surprised to find a distinct shortage of craters, which indicates a young planet. An early report of the Magellan findings stated: "The Venusian surface appears to be 100 million to 1 billion years old, quite ancient by terrestrial standards" [28 but very young when compared with the Moon or Mercury which also suffer little erosion. The craters on Venus all appear to be new. There is no evidence of an old, heavily cratered terrain. It was simply suggested that the planet's outer layers have been 'reworked and erased relatively recently' [29 without any cause being given. The erasure of the planet's features must have stopped abruptly for there to be little sign of encroachment of lava upon the craters. Clearly, the age will be too high if cratering rates were greater in the recent past. The detailed nature of the surface, revealed by panoramic photographs from Venera 9 after landing, was a surprise. There were no signs of a dust cloud on touch-down at 24 kph and the stones were sharp-edged and recent looking. Even if the erosion rate on Venus were a fraction of a percent of that on Earth, a soil measured in metres would be expected to form in 100 million years. In addition, some of the slopes on Venus, determined by the Magellan orbiter, are remarkably steep. There are slopes of 1 in 4, which is near the limit of stability. Such slopes  obviously cannot have existed for long. They are remarkably young. It is assumed that resurfacing by basaltic lavas is responsible for the apparent youthfulness of the surface. This requires some unknown mechanism based on unproven convection in the mantle to cause widespread resurfacing of the planet, followed by quiescence. It seems to be asking too much for some indeterminate internal process to create planet-wide lavas and then shut down for hundreds of millions of years while cratering takes place. Of course, all of this presupposes that Venus has a  history prior to the 'global resurfacing event'. 12. No satellite Venus has no satellite. The Earth is unique among the inner planets in having a moon which would not appear out of place among the satellites of the giant outer planets. It suggests a quite different history for Earth compared to Venus. How are planets formed? Before any discussion can take place about the age of Venus, the method of planet formation needs to be determined. The accepted nebular theory of the birth of the Solar System does not allow much leeway from a figure of 4.5 billion years. If Venus was added to the solar family of planets very recently, then a new cosmogony must be proposed which does not require that all planets be created at the same time. This would be a radical departure from astronomical thinking today and would result in a completely new perspective in cosmology as well as cosmogony. The better we understand our own back yard, the better are the chances that we will eventually unravel the mystery of our origins, and the solution will come sooner if our minds are prepared to accept the truth when it is found, however fantastic it may be. It we are guided by our reason and our scientific method, if we let the Universe describe its wonder to us, rather than telling it how it ought to be, then we will soon come to the answers we seek, perhaps even within our own lifetimes.' [34
_References