Word: venusized
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Only a generation back, Venus was commonly thought of as a fine abode for lush, jungly life. As scientists learned more about the cloud-shrouded 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...
...Strong got his information from a giant balloon belonging to the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratory that carried a telescope above nearly all of the earth's atmosphere. An automatic pointing device locked on the sun and used it as a reference point to focus the telescope on Venus. Then the telescope photographed the spectrum of solar infra-red light reflected from the top of the cloud deck...
Earlier attempts to look for water on Venus had been frustrated by the masking effect of the abundant water vapor in the earth's lower atmosphere, but the 87,500-ft. level where the balloon-telescope took its pictures is above nearly all of the earth's vapor. Thus the spectral absorption that it photographed was almost entirely free from earthside confusion. Says Dr. Strong: "About 95% of the water that we saw was on Venus...
Where water exists at reasonable temperature, life may exist too, even if only as microscopic organisms floating in the clouds. Dr. Strong believes that "the proof of water vapor forces us to re-examine every previous calculation made concerning the possibility of some sort of life existing on Venus. The case is not closed...
Such precautions greatly underrate the proved ability of ordinary people to be moved by art. As Venus reached Tokyo, French Critic Claude Roger-Marx wrote: "I am one of those people who believe that museums are not sim ply repositories and that masterpieces should not be condemned to immobility. They belong to all mankind." Minister of Culture Andre Malraux agreed. "To take a simple example," he said. "In Washington, poor women came with their children and approached the Mona Lisa with their eyes lowered, raised them to see it, then went into the crowd and came back again...