ON June 5 and 6, the planet Venus passes between the earth and the sun producing a silhouette that few alive today will likely see again. It won’t happen again until 2117.
“Earth and Venus are similar distances from the sun, are made of the same basic materials, and are almost perfect twins in terms of size.
“Yet the two planets are wrapped in stunningly dissimilar blankets of air. Venus’s atmosphere is almost 100 times more massive than Earth’s and consists mainly of CO2, a greenhouse gas that raises the surface temperature to almost 900°F. Clouds of sulfuric acid tower 14 miles high and whip around the planet as fast as 220 mph. A human being transported to this hellish environment would be crushed, suffocate, desiccate, and possibly ignite.
“For the most part, planetary scientists have no idea how Venus turned out this way.
Our models and tools cannot fully explain Venus, which means we lack the tools for understanding our own planet…
Read more http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/04jun_arcofvenus/
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Image from http://www.space.com/15973-venus-transit-pictures-2012-gallery.html
Against The Hellfire, Credit: NASA / SDO. The Solar Dynamics Observatory’s AIA 304 camera delivered this amazing image of Venus over the active Sun during the first few hours of the Venus Transit.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.