Unveiling Venus: Stephen Kane Reveals Secrets and Mysteries of this Shrouded World
What do we know about Venus? What do we not know? Stephen Kane, planetary astrophysicist at UC Riverside, joins us to uncover the science and unanswered questions about Venus.
1960s Venus Scene: Open with a retro, sci-fi-inspired vision of Venus, with James standing on the planet’s surface. At first, is seems desolate. [THERAMIN SOUNDS]. We see an alien who looks like a human. Then a second, then a crowd.
Alien: Greetings, Earthling. Welcome to Venus. How was your flight?
James: Thanks. Not bad, once we got past launch. I never liked liftoff.
Alien: Wait. How can you survive here? The surface of Venus is over 450 Celsius. That’s almost 900 Fahrenheit!
James: You call that HOT? I’m from Arizona!
Alien: And crushing pressures that…”
James: Pressures? You want pressures? Have you tried living in today’s society?”
Alien: Acid rain? a choking smog-filled atmosphere?
James: I’m also a Gen Xer. Smog? Acid Rain? Been there, done that, got the tee-shirt.
Alien: But… there’s no water…
James: Look. Now we’re just back to Arizona again.
Alien: But… Who are you? What are you doing here?
James: I am James G. Maynard, and I am host of The Cosmic Companion. And this is Unveiling Venus, with planetary astrophysicist Stephen Kane!
[APPLAUSE. MUSIC.]
For centuries, Venus has captured the human imagination. In ancient times, it was associated with the goddess of love and beauty, being called Aphrodite in Greek mythology and Venus to the Romans. But as we gazed at this celestial wonder, little did we know what truly lay beneath its luminous facade.
Early astronomers like Galileo studied Venus through telescopes, revealing its phases and tantalizing us with hints of a world that might mirror our own. The phases of Venus also provided tantalizing hints that the Earth was not at the center of the Universe.
Fantastical ideas emerged, imagining lush jungles filled with dinosaurs — a veritable prehistoric paradise. But as science advanced and robotic missions began exploring the planet, a starker reality came into focus.
The Soviet Union’s Venera probes, launched in the 1960s and ’70s, lifted the veil on Venus’ true nature. Rather than a tropical haven, they found a hellish landscape with crushing atmospheric pressures, scorching temperatures, and clouds of sulfuric acid rain. Dreams of dinosaur-filled jungles evaporated like water on Venus’ hot surface.
At the start of the 1990’s, NASA’s Magellan mission mapped the entire surface of Venus using radar, which is able to penetrate through the planet’s encompassing layer of clouds.
We quickly learned that Venus is home to surface temperatures of 480 degrees Celsius — hot enough to melt lead. Atmospheric pressure runs around 90 times that of Earth — the same as being 900 meters underwater.
[Honestly, I THRIVE under pressure!]
The same chemical as the ingredient used in drain cleaner and lead-acid batteries, sulfuric acid rain falling from the amber-colored clouds would quickly melt the umbrellas of anyone attempting to do a production of Singing in the Rain.
As the 20th century drew to a close, Venus was dubbed a “dead planet” in popular imagination. The dream of an Earth-like paradise had faded, replaced by the sobering reality of an inhospitable world.
Yet, even as our romantic notions of Venus dissolved, the planet surprised us all as evidence of volcanoes, molten mountains, and an active crust revealed a world with an exciting surface, and a whole lot to teach us about planets everywhere.
Next up, we talk with planetary astrophysicist Stephen Kane from UC Riverside.
Get ready to embark on a series of journeys to our scorching celestial neighbor, Venus! NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are gearing up for a sizzling trio of missions that will explore this enigmatic planet in the next decade.
First up is NASA’s DAVINCI mission, which aims to study the atmosphere of Venus in ultraviolet light. This mission also comes complete with a daring descent probe that will plunge through Venus’s hellish atmosphere, sampling its mysterious chemistry and even capturing images of the alien landscape below.
Next, we have NASA’s VERITAS mission, an orbiter that will map the planet’s surface in stunning detail using the Venus Descent Imager. With VERITAS, we’ll be able to explore the vast plains and towering mountains of Venus, uncovering secrets of the planet’s tumultuous past. And this mission may tell us whether the core of Venus is solid, liquid, or something in-between.
Lastly, ESA’s EnVision mission will be swooping in to investigate why Venus and Earth, once so similar, evolved so differently. This will be the first mission to ever study Venus from its inner core out to its upper atmosphere, making EnVision a sort of celestial detective, hot on the trail of Venus’s puzzling mysteries.
[Detective? No…. I’m just curious, is all.]
With these missions, we’re poised to dig deeper than ever before into Venus’ secrets.
The Cosmic Companion is moving to every other Saturday, as we work on our first feature-length film, The Wizard and The Scholar. Make sure to join us on 22 June for our next episode, with comedic sweetness on the outside, and a crunchy science-filled center.
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Clear skies!
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