Venus Yields Her Secrets...

Venus must be jealous of all of the attention recently focused on the Earth's greenhouse gases, so she's starting to give up some of her secrets.

Last year, the European Space Agency (ESA) sent a probe called the Venus Express to the cloudy planet. Since that time, data received concerning the swirling blanket that keeps Venus's surface a toasty 872°F yielded "mysterious" results. One of those mysteries may have been solved.

AccorDing to ESA's website, the American Astronomical Society's Division of Planetary Sciences will soon announce at its annual meeting the discovery of a rare molecule-- an exotic form of carbon dioxide-- in the atmospheres of not only Venus, but as well. It could lead to a better understanding of how the greenhouse mechanism works on Venus, and could provide valuable insight into heat woes here on Earth.

What started all of this was a French/Belgian/Russian project lead by Jean-Loup Bertaux and Ann-Carine Vandaele. They used an Infrared Atmospheric Spectrometer (SOIR) to gauge 'solar occultations'. This instrument watches the sun set behind Venus, noting the way specific wavelengths of light are absorbed by that planet's atmosphere. What turned up was an unidentified signature in the mid-infrared region of the spectrum (at 3.3 micrometers). Bertaux called the findings "conspicuous and systematic..."

Was an organic molecule responsible? Were SUVs finally available on Venus? A breakthrough came in December 2006, when Mike Mumma of NASA (having examined similar unidentified spectral signatures gathered by telescopes in Hawaii) compared his findings with that of SOIR's Venus research. It was a perfect match!

The atmospheres of and Venus are composed of 95% carbon dioxide, though the latter's is notoriously thicker. Mumma and his American team suggested the rogue signature could be coming from a rare carbon dioxide isotope consisting of one eight-proton, eight-neutron 'normal' oxygen atom, and one eight-proton, ten-neutron atom. Since those oxygen atoms have different weights, the molecule can alter its vibration in two ways simultaneously, leading to a 'rare transition'. This transition allows for the absorption of more energy than usual, and therefore contributes to the greenhouse effect at an even greater rate.

More bad news for Earth, since 1% of all of the carbon dioxide on our planet consists of this very isotope? Not really: the Earth has 250,000 times less carbon dioxide than Venus. But the more we learn about the greenhouse effect on Venus, the better chance we can give to the endangered ice caps here at home.

[Apologies for having not mentioned Al Gore. Nope, not even once. But I do wonder if he's heard about this...]

by Eric Duby

Related Galaxy Posts:

What & Venus Can Teach Us About Climate Change
Coming of Age in the Holocene
"Snowball Earth" Challenged
Bigger Threat than Global Warming -Mass Species Extinction
A "Flat World" Solution to Climate Change
Monitoring Climate Change -Experts Say We Need Lunar Observatories

links:
www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMF8BV7D7F_index_2.html
www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/V/Venusatmos.html

Comments

[Luis D Rey]

I give thanks to Eric Duby for (not) bringing the name of that Charlattan and impostor by the name of Al Gore, although, instead the Muslim Obama Democratic candidate and his unhappy wife would have been worth mentioning!!

Luis Rey

New York City