why explore Mars but not Venus?

[C'DaleRider]

Originally posted by: Shooters

Originally posted by: maziwanka

Originally posted by: Shooters
sulfuric acid clouds
up to 600C temperature (hottest in the solar system)

Edit
Also, one Martian day in very close to one Earth day, about 24 and a half hours if I remember correctly. But, one Venus day is 243 Earth Days. Interestingly enough, it takes only 225 Earth days for Venus to orbit the sun. So, if we were on Venus, we would be celebrating new years more than once between sun rises...that would be weird.

your post makes no sense.

I was simply stating that because one Martian day is relatively equal to one Earth day, it would be easier for living things to adapt (since sunrises and sunsets would come at about the same frequency as on they do on Earth).

However, with Venus' day lasting 243 Earth days, it would be much more difficult. How quickly do you think living organisms from Earth would be able to get used to 120 (Earth) days in sunlight and then 120 days in darkness? The thing about Venusian years being shorter than its days was just a bit of trivia I found interesting.

I think you missed this point: the rotation of Venus and revolution of Venus is so close to one another that one side of Venus is almost, and I said almost, always pointed at the sun. If it were exactly the same, then one on the sun side of the planet would always remain in sunlight; one on the dark side would always remain on the dark side. But, since the rotation is approx. 10% faster than its revolution, the planet exposes approx 10% of its dark side to the sun every year.....it'd take 10 Venus years to turn around completely once.

If you could actually survive Venus's surface, you could set up a habitat and move it every few days back out of the approaching sun and keep it in the narrow band of twilight.....out of the furnace of the sun and out of the freezing cold side. But, as noted, the sulfuric acid rain would be the killer, along with the terrible crushing atmospheric pressure.

 

[thomsbrain]

another OIKOS classic. endless hours of amusement.

 

[Savarak]

They *are* going to "explore" Venus... there are probes already enroute... due to arrive summer this year! The probes won't last too long, suicide missions, but they'll provide better pics than the voyager missions hopefully

 

[Savarak]

oops i might be wrong, it could be either venus or jupiter that i read the probe thing about

 

[LongCoolMother]

its fascinating. what kind of jobs can people who study astronomy in college get?

i heard that if one were to strike a match on venus, the entire planet would explode because of the atmosphere :Q

 

[Shooters]

Originally posted by: C'DaleRider
I think you missed this point: the rotation of Venus and revolution of Venus is so close to one another that one side of Venus is almost, and I said almost, always pointed at the sun. If it were exactly the same, then one on the sun side of the planet would always remain in sunlight; one on the dark side would always remain on the dark side. But, since the rotation is approx. 10% faster than its revolution, the planet exposes approx 10% of its dark side to the sun every year.....it'd take 10 Venus years to turn around completely once.

If you could actually survive Venus's surface, you could set up a habitat and move it every few days back out of the approaching sun and keep it in the narrow band of twilight.....out of the furnace of the sun and out of the freezing cold side. But, as noted, the sulfuric acid rain would be the killer, along with the terrible crushing atmospheric pressure.

Ah, I feel dumb now for not thinking of that before I made my post. But, wouldn't it depend on the direction of the planet's rotation vs the orbital direction? It they were both either clockwise or counterclockwise from a given reference view then you'd be right about one side always facing the sun, but if they were opposite then it seems that you would actually have almost two complete sunrises in the time it takes to make one full orbit around the sun. Do planets always rotate in the same direction as their orbit? I feel kinda dumb because this sounds like something that I should know.

Edit:
It seems that most planets in the solar system exhibit prograde motion (their rotation and orbital direction are the same); however, Venus and Uranus exhibit retrograde motion (rotation and orbital direction oppose eachother). So, since the time it takes Venus to make one full rotation about its axis and the time it takes it to orbit the sun are roughly equal, I guess you would see a full sunrise twice in one (Venusian) day.....weird.

linky