Thursday, February 26, 2009

Planet Venus







Planet Venus glows in invisible light.The sightings of nightglow in Venus has proved useful to study the elements of its atmosphere.chemical found in its atmosphere recombine into molecules such as nitric oxide,and give off energy in the form of invisible light.

An eerie nightglow on th planet Venus has appeared at least twice to a European spacecraft,tough a human would need in frared eyes to spot it.previously reported glows have revealed the chemical breakdown of Venus atmosphere.But this latest sighting represents a newly discovered nightglow caused by nitric oxide in the planet's atmosphere, and has proven useful for observing Venus atmosphere.The nightglow can give us a lot of information,said Antonio Garcia Munoz.,a former researcher at Australian National University who has since relocated to the instituto de Astrofisica Canarias n Spain.




Europe Venus Express spotted the nightglow with visible and infrared thermal imaging spectrometer(VIRTIS)instrument to record the nitric oxide levels on planets below.On Earth,the molecule can be found as a pollutant from cigarette smoke,car emissions and power plants.The phenomenon speaks to the on-going violence of the sun's ultraviolet light pummeling the planetary atmosphere,which breaks up molecules and atoms these fragments may recombine into molecules such as nitric oxide,and give us energy in the form of light.





Previous Venus nightglows from oxygen and hydroxyl molecules have been detected from 56 - 62 miles up in the planet's atmosphere.Nitric oxide light emissions have appeared slightly higher at the 68 to 75 mile range.


Venus is the second planet from the sun, and is about the same size as Earth., but is 67 million miles from the Sun, as opposed to our 93 million miles, and has a year 225 days long. But it takes more than a year for a day—that is, it takes 243 days to rotate once. It is hot, about 860°F (460°C), enough to melt lead, with clouds of sulfuric acid, and an atmosphere 96% carbon dioxide resulting in a surface pressure 90 times that of Earth. Venus is Hell, and is furthermore said to be the #1 UFO false alarm, because it can be seven times brighter than any other star or planet. I haven’t, but, with a practiced eye, you can actually see Venus in broad daylight.




This has all to do with runaway positive feedback (RPF). A well known example of RPF is the howling sound from an audio system. Negative feedback is good, as for example, in an air conditioner, which turns the cool off when a certain minimum temperature is reached, and then turns it back on, when a certain maximum temperature is reached. Positive feedback usually destabilizes systems. An example of positive feedback is when a heater reaches a maximum temperature, and the system reacts by adding more heat. This is what is happening in global climate warming. Our civilization is insanely contributing to positive feedback by burning more fossil fuels. But is there any danger of a runaway?




Theoretically, according to a NASA study, evaporation loads the atmosphere with water vapor, which traps thermal energy coming from the Earth, and in a chain reaction loop, results in further warming of the ocean, leading to higher evaporation rates, trapping more water vapor, etc. However, it just turns out that sea surface temperatures never reach more than about 87°F (27°C), the critical temperature at which a runaway effect could occur. On Earth, today, we are, maybe, safe, if there were no human activity.

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