Word: venusians
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...telescope's short as cent seems puny indeed, and it cost the sponsoring Air Force an insignificant $100,000. But the data it collected before it parachuted back to Earth promises to stir up a lively astronomical argument. Mariner confirmed earlier radiotelescope observations and reported that the Venusian surface is far too hot and dry to support any Earth-type life. The flying telescope got a vastly different slant. After careful analysis, says Hopkins Balloon Astron omer John Strong, he is convinced that the clouds hiding the Venusian surface are made of ice particles, just like the Earth...
...combining 120 separate spectroscopic measurements, Dr. Strong and his assistants got a smooth curve showing how strongly the Venusian clouds reflect different wave lengths of solar infrared. This curve matched almost perfectly the reflection spectrum of an ice-crystal cloud observed in the laboratory. It was wholly different from the curves of dust, liquid carbon dioxide, liquid formaldehyde and the other noxious substances that are generally considered to be the content of Venusian clouds...
...planet, its real estate values plummeted. Modern studies of Venus have pictured it as hot and waterless, certainly not a place for any kind of life that is known on earth. But last week Venus got a kind word. Professor John Strong of Johns Hopkins University reported that the Venusian atmosphere has a large amount of water vapor above its sunlit cloud deck...
Analysis of the spectra showed that above its cloud deck, the Venusian atmosphere has about 9.8 milligrams of water vapor per square centimeter. This is not much, but it is not far from the amount that is believed to exist above a comparable level in the earth's atmosphere...
...Strong prefers not to decide whether the presence of water vapor means that the dense Venusian clouds are made of water droplets like the earth's clouds or whether they are dust or hydrocarbons, as some authorities think. "I have now come to the end of my competence," he says, "but my personal opinion is that it does imply water." Further deductions are even more iffy, but Dr. Strong suspects that free oxygen may exist along with carbon dioxide in the Venusian atmosphere. If so, it probably comes from water molecules that are broken into hydrogen and oxygen...