Venus Once Had as Much Water as Earth -What Happened?

The conditions on Venus are hard to describe.  Many planetary scientists say "Start by imagining Hell and work up from there."  It's an environment where words like "over 500 degrees Celsius" get thrown around, and it's flat-out crushed every probe we've sent into it.  Even worse, there's almost no water, and the European Space Agency have been finding out why.

Venus was created at about the same time as Earth, in about the same place, and it's roughly the same size - it would therefore have started with the same materials as us, drawn together from the same region of the planet forming dust left over from the sun.  But Venus now has only 0.001% of our water content, and a couple of flybys by the dynamically named Venus Express may have revealed the reason.

Last year the probe discovered hydrogen and oxygen streaming off the night side of the planet in a 2:1 ratio, which you might recognize as the ratio in H20.  If not, we're sure you can now deduce it.   It seems that what little water Venus has left is being blasted apart in the atmosphere by the solar wind, a vast stream of charged particles blown out by the sun.  Now, the Express has passed by the dayside and measured almost three hundred kilograms of hydrogen a day being lost into space.  It hasn't found any oxygen yet, but the search continues.

Earth is defended from the atmosphere-flensing radiation by its magnetic field, and the data set indicating how vital that is may be short, but it's quite compelling.  Earth, magnetic field, alive. Venus, none, dead.  Mars, none, dead.  We may want to hold on to this thing. Not that we have the tech to do anything about it should it stop or decide to flip or something.  Luckily, it would never do such a thing.

Wait, it does do that?  Oh. Well, good luck,to  us.

Luke McKinney.

Venus Express http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Venus_Express/SEM8MYSTGOF_0.html

Comments

[ixmatus]

No need to gloom doom - even when the poles do flip it will by no means cause mass loss of life (rather, in this case, mass loss of hydrogen and oxygen or the two combined).

Also, just because Venus accumulated 'in about the same place and time' as Earth doesn't mean it would have developed with the exact same materials - therefore, Venus most likely did not have as much water as Earth. Also, the distance to the sun does have drastic effects upon Venus' atmospheric conditions - effects that aren't quite so strenuous on Earth due to our distance.

You might also note: Mars isn't spewing its Oxygen, Hydrogen, or H2O out into orbit; it is all frozen beneath its surface.

[Anonymous]

The poles have flipped multiple times.

[anonymous]

Not to mention that it's estimated roughly half of the water on Earth was delivered via comets. In fact, as a test to measure how much water could potentially be derived from an individual comet, NASA deliberately smashed a probe into one a few years ago.

[claudio]

Agreeed with ESA and NASA : a strong and persistent MAG field is crucial to maintain Oxigen and Hydrogen on the surface and in the ATM for every main body in the solar system.

>Mars has NOT a decent MAG field
>Venus has NOT a decent MAG field

Venus is NOT so near the Sun as to suffer particular problems of wipe out from solar storms.....

Its actual ATM (about 100 times higher pressure than that of Earth) is everything but not oxigen and hydrogen...

Terrific conditions with continuous lightning ...and acid rains.....temperature extremely high...

NO probe has resisted at lenght the surface conditions .

The two probes of Russia..called 'Venera' have survided hours on the surface...and only one was able to send a picture-image truly discomforting of the nearby surface....the instruments of the other Venera probe could not survive the tremendous pressure and temperature.

Radio waves have problems in trespassing the barrier of that ATM to reach back the earth...and the planet has been mapped with by radars of USA probes from the high ATM altitude....

Pictures of a gigantic volcano where recostructed by the radar signals imaging....

NO life forms can be infered to exist on Venus....a terrible environment...for life to evolve.

No seas of lakes were detected...nothing supporting the life.

NOW the possible idea that long time ago Venus had an ATM and seas like planet Earth.....is an interesting Hyphotesis...BUT.....proven by the Probe 'Express' ???

I doubt that Venus ever had an ATM similar to ours...and for sure we do not know if ever had a decent MAG field..to sustain it.

The ATM pressure 100 times higher than ours suggests that the solar winds and storms....are far from wiping out everything as for Mercury....

Venus has indeed a dense ATM ... abundant of everything but not Hydrogen..Oxigen and Nitrogen...

Something inside the planet must maintain this dense ATM (Volcanos ??) in spite of the missing MAG field.

Regards

[Homer Jones]

Wow that is scary. I hope Earth doesnt follow suit!

Jess
www.privacy-tools.at.tc

[jer35mx]

When it comes, what would happen if a giant ice comet fell in Venus?

[Edward McCain]

Please cite your peer-reviewed reference for Venus once having as much water as the Earth.

[MICHAEL J. SCHMITZ]

HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT OF BELOW THE SURFACE TO SAVE THE INHABITANTS FROM INVASION. OR AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO THINKS OR HAS MOST OF THIS INFORMATION, LIKE MARS WAS THE FIRST TO BE ATTACK FROM ANOTHER GALAXY, SO MOST OF THEIR NEEDS ARE ALSO BELOW THE SURFACE AND TO SCARE OTHERS AWAY. PUT LARGE FACES ON THE SURFACES. THIS ONLY GOES TO SHOW YOU THAT MAN IS STILL IN MARS. HAPPY NEW YEAR. MIKE SCHMITZ

[Sweetarded]

Ridiculous. If there is no bank machine on Venus, how could the lava and magma get their money?

[dmarx]

have they done a study to see if the same "solar wind-water being carried off" phenomenon is occuring on earth. it would be useful information. oh, and some of you people sound childish. then again you may actually be five. you never know with the internet.

[Frank Glover]

A similar argument:

Mars: No magnetic field, atmosphere largely stripped away...

Earth: Magnetic field, nice thick atmosphere.

But that argument doesn't explain why Venus, closer to the Sun, yet oppressively thick atmosphere.

(What's that? Mars is also signifiganly less massive that Earth or Venus? Would a more massive Mars have held more atmosphere, solar wind or not?)

I suspect the slow rotation of Venus (which is also part of why it has no real magnetic field) had as much to do with its early greenhouse runaway as anything else, and a Venus with a more Earth/Mars like day could've been a rather different place...

[John Caley]

What a load of rubbish
in assuming that accretion was the mother of planet creation, rather absurd.

It is more than obvious from analysis of the parameters of this Solar System that each planet was ejected from the Sun... so any planet closer to the Sun is considerably younger than those further out.

Venus is a pre-Earth... no water, just as Earth once had no water

The infection called LIFE manufactured the water (and oxygen and other metabolites) on Earth... and once LIFE becomes extinct (soon enough), Earth once again will have no water.

Venus will be (maybe already is) infected.... welcome the New Earth !!!! as it spirals out to occupy the orbital range of current Earth... and Earth spirals out...to break up point (as Mars is now doing)

Current cosmological theories do not account for all the observed/calculated data... these theories are only convenient illusions created decades+ ago to placate the ignorant public.

Cosmology is an ART not a science.

If you thought at all, the classical claims re Venus in the article above, are just ludicrous...and contrary to any reality we know.

[Heliogabalus]

John, your ideas are so far from the concensus, I bet you believe the manned Moon missions were faked. What we know of Venus is well established, there has been no huge revelations since Venera missions about the surface conditions on Venus. But we've gotten more data, and more accurate data all the time with flybys and special missions like Venus Express. The lack of water on Venus has been a puzzle.

The lack of a significant magnetic field is pretty much best bet for the surface conditions; the ionized particles that would otherwise hit the Earth are deflected away by the magnetic field. A polar shift that lasts a few centuries wouldn't affect much our atmosphere, but a sudden release of carbon dioxide will, and in the last 200 years the carbon dioxide levels in Earth's atmosphere has more than doubled.

Mind you, free oxygen on Earth was probably produced by the first plant algae, not water. Water came in the heavy bombardment era via cometary bodies hitting the early Earth. Oxygen was produced from carbon dioxide by life.

[EvilCosmicMonkey from Knoxville]

Aside from all the disputes about this subject, does anyone seriously believe that Venus could be terraformed ? That would be almost like digging the Panama or Suez canals with a bent tablespoon. Mars could probably be more easily terraformed !!

Venus is also a helluvan example of runaway global warming without the aid of the industrial complex.

[Kevin Evans]

John Caley - Citation, please. I have never heard of accretion theory being dubunked. I find it very interesting that you chose to use such stong language without feeling compelled in the slightest to provide citation - idiocy.
BTW - Venusian means "of or from planet Venus" like Martian means "of or from planet Mars".

Arrogance or ignorance makes our species look for the conditions for life which we are most familiar. Imagine a Silicon-based instead of a Carbon-based life form. Also, anarobic organisms exist all over the Earth, why aren't they given the same consideration for evolution in an environment sans O2? Just because the high oxygen content on Earth stifles their development doesn't rule them out as a possible life form elsewhere.

[wayno]

Since when was the accretion method no longer standard model, and what on earth do you mean by flung out of the sun? Are our planets just cosmic pebbles thrown around by the school yard bully? C'mon, guys, thinks a litte before you post.

[Mr. Petersohoal]

I agree with EvilCosmicMonkey; if you do some more research into the creation of earth and the planets you would realize that earth was indeed a harsh lifeless mass. An anaerobic atmosphere made up of primarily methane gas, not oxygen. It seems like people just need to read more.

[Wayward Son]

I agree with wayno, evilcosmicmonkey and most with Mr. Petersohoal. The idea of things in the universe being able to change over time and be in different forms then we can usually imagine exists but is widely disproved and unappreciated. Like in the movie evolution, organisms don't have to be carbon based and especially don't always need water for their sustenance. Either way, people should read more.

[hugedick]

i actually lived on venus for about 3 months it was pretty nice