Word: venusians
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...photographers were Venera (for Venus) 13 and 14, the latest in a series of Soviet robot envoys to the earth's nearest planetary neighbor. Venera 13 lasted two hours and seven minutes on the Venusian griddle, while its twin worked about half as long. But their handiwork survived to become the hit of the show at the 13th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston last week. As the photographs were shown to some 560 scientists, most of them Americans, oohs and aahs rose from the audience. Says University of Minnesota Physicist Robert Pepin: "There was no small amount...
...made Venus a major target of study, should help. They have just sent off two more probes. Both are expected to land on the scorching surface and scoop up samples for quick chemical analysis, radioing back their findings in the hour or so before the ships expire in the Venusian hothouse...
...including a particularly brilliant bit of deduction about the planet Venus. At the time, many scientists still regarded Venus as a kind of sister planet of the earth with a benign climate. But radio emissions from the planet were hinting at puzzlingly high temperatures. Sagan pointed out that a Venusian atmosphere of carbon dioxide and water vapor would trap solar heat, create a "greenhouse effect" and raise surface temperatures far above those of the earth. His prediction was soon confirmed by Soviet landers. The planet's surface temperature proved to be about 480° C (900° F), high enough to melt...
...biter spacecraft has been circling the planet since December 1978, analyzing its atmosphere and scanning and rescanning its surface with radar. Last week NASA released the first renderings of these extraterrestial data, revealing a dramatic and awesome landscape still in the process of formation. Though 60% of the Venusian topography consists of flat rolling plains, it also includes four major highland regions, the highest being Ishtar Terra (named after the Assyrian goddess of love and war), which is dominated by a 11,800-meter (38,700 ft.) massif, probably volcanic, that eclipses Everest...
Last winter Venus was explored by two Pioneer spacecraft: one a radar-equipped orbiter still spewing data, the other a multiple probe that dropped five instrument packages into the Venusian atmosphere. Among the findings: the neighboring planet has an extraordinary five-layered cloud cover, is riddled by continuous lightning bolts and scarred by a rift valley and mountain peak more grandiose than any on earth, and has totally unexpected abundances of primordial neon and argon. Their presence suggests new ideas about the nature of the great cloud of gases and dust from which the sun and planets were born...