Venus: the color of the planet. Information about the planet Venus. Weather on the planet Venus

The universe is huge. Scientists trying to embrace it in their studies often feel the incomparable loneliness of mankind, piercing some of Efremov's novels. There is too little chance of finding a life like ours in an accessible space of space.

For a long time , Venus, the planet of the solar system, enveloped in organic life, was enveloped in legends no less than fog.

Close and similar

Venus in distance from the star follows immediately behind Mercury and is our closest neighbor. From the Earth it can be seen without the help of a telescope: in the evening and the pre-dawn hours the brightest in the sky after the Moon and the Sun is Venus. The color of the planet for a simple observer is always white.

In the literature one can find its designation as a twin of the Earth. There are a number of explanations for this: the description of the planet Venus repeats data on our house in many ways. First of all, they include a diameter (about 12,100 km), which practically coincides with the corresponding characteristic of the Blue Planet (a difference of about 5%). The mass of the object, named after the goddess of love, also differs little from the earthly. His role in partial identification was played by the close proximity.

The discovery of the atmosphere reinforced the view of the similarity of the two cosmic bodies. Information about the planet Venus, confirming the presence of a special air envelope, was obtained by M.V. Lomonosov in the year 1761. An ingenious scientist observed the passage of the planet through the disk of the Sun and noticed a special radiance. The phenomenon was explained by the refraction of the rays of light in the atmosphere. However, subsequent discoveries revealed a huge chasm between seemingly similar conditions on two planets.

The Cover of Mystery

Such evidence of similarity, like the size of the planet Venus and the presence of its atmosphere, was supplemented by data on the composition of the air, actually crossed out the dreams of the existence of life on the Morning Star. During the space research , carbon dioxide and nitrogen were detected. Their share in the air envelope is distributed respectively as 96 and 3%.

The density of the atmosphere is a factor that makes Venus so well visible from the Earth and simultaneously inaccessible to research. The layers of clouds that envelop the planet reflect the light well, but they are impenetrable for scientists who want to establish what they are hiding. More detailed information about the planet Venus became available only after the beginning of space research.

The composition of the cloud cover is incomplete. Presumably, a large role in it is played by sulfuric acid vapors. The concentration of gases and the density of the atmosphere, about a hundred times greater than the terrestrial, creates a greenhouse effect on the surface.

Eternal Heat

The weather on the planet Venus is in many respects similar to the fantastic descriptions of conditions in the underworld. Due to the peculiarities of the atmosphere, the surface never cools even from the part that is turned away from the Sun. And this despite the fact that the rotation around the axis The morning star does more than 243 Earth days! The temperature on the planet Venus is + 470ºC.

The absence of a change of seasons is explained by the inclination of the axis of the planet, according to various data not exceeding 40 or 10º. Moreover, the thermometer column here gives the same results for both the equatorial zone and the poles region.

Greenhouse effect

Such conditions leave no chance for water. According to the researchers, once upon Venus there were oceans, but a rise in temperature made their existence impossible. Ironically, the formation of the greenhouse effect was made possible by the evaporation of a large amount of water. Steam transmits sunlight, but retains heat at the surface, thereby contributing to an increase in temperature.

Surface

Heat contributed to the formation of the landscape. Prior to the appearance of radar methods in the arsenal of astronomy, the nature of the surface possessed by the planet Venus was hidden from scientists. The photos and images taken by the spacecraft helped to make a rather detailed map of the relief.

The high temperature has weakened the planet's crust, so there is a large number of volcanoes, both active and extinct. They give Venus that hilly look, which is clearly visible on the radar images. Flows of basaltic lava formed vast plains, against which background elevations, stretching for several tens of square kilometers, are clearly visible. These are the so-called continents, the size comparable to Australia, and by the nature of the terrain resembling the mountain ranges of Tibet. Their surface is covered with cracks and craters, unlike the landscape of some of the plains, almost completely smooth.

The craters left by meteorites are much smaller here than, for example, on the Moon. Scientists call two possible reasons for this: a dense atmosphere that plays the role of a kind of screen, and active processes that erased tracks from falling space bodies. In the first case, the detected craters most likely appeared in a period when the atmosphere was more dilute.

Desert

The description of the planet Venus will be incomplete if we pay attention only to radar data. They give an idea of the nature of the terrain, but it is difficult for an inhabitant to understand on their basis what he would see if he came here. Studies of space vehicles landing on the Morning Star helped to answer the question of what color the planet Venus would be for an observer on its surface. As well as it is necessary to an infernal landscape, here shades of orange and gray dominate. The landscape really looks like a desert, waterless and hot. This is Venus. The color of the planet, characteristic of the ground, also dominates the sky. The reason for this unusual color is the absorption of the short-wavelength part of the light spectrum, which is characteristic of a dense atmosphere.

Difficulties in studying

Data on Venus are collected by the apparatus with great difficulty. Stay on the planet is complicated by strong winds, reaching a peak speed at an altitude of 50 km above the surface. Near the ground, the element largely calms down, but even a weak air movement is a weighty obstacle in the dense atmosphere that the planet Venus possesses. Photos that give an idea of the surface are made by ships capable of resisting a hostile onslaught for only a few hours. However, there are enough of them so that after each expedition the scientists discover something new.

Hurricane winds are not the only feature that the weather on the planet Venus is famous for. Here, thunderstorms are raging at a frequency exceeding twice the analogous parameter for the Earth. During a period of increasing activity, lightning causes a specific glow in the atmosphere.

"Eccentricities" of the Morning Star

The Venusian wind is the reason that clouds move around the planet much faster than it itself around the axis. As noted, the last parameter is 243 days. The atmosphere sweeps around the planet in four days. This Venusian quirks do not end there.

The duration of the year is somewhat less than the length of the day: 225 terrestrial days. At the same time, the Sun on the planet does not rise in the east, but in the west. Such an unconventional direction of rotation is peculiar only to Uranus. Exactly exceeding the earth's speed of rotation around the Sun made it possible to observe Venus twice during the day: in the morning and in the evening.

The orbit of the planet is practically an ideal circle, the same can be said about its form. The Earth is slightly flattened from the poles, the Morning Star has no such feature.

Coloring

What color is the planet Venus? Partially this topic has already been disclosed, but not all so unambiguously. This characteristic can also be attributed to the number of features that have Venus. The color of the planet, when viewed from space, differs from the dusty-orange, inherent surface. Again, the whole thing in the atmosphere: the cloud of clouds does not pass below the rays of the blue-green spectrum and at the same time color the planet for an outward observer in dirty white. For earthlings, rising above the horizon, the Morning Star has a cold luster, and not a reddish glow.

Structure

Numerous missions of space vehicles made it possible to draw not only conclusions about the color of the surface, but also to study in more detail what is under it. The structure of the planet is similar to that of the earth. The morning star has a bark (a thickness of about 16 km), the mantle beneath it and the core is the core. The size of the planet Venus is close to the earth, but the ratio of inner shells is different. The thickness of the mantle layer is more than three thousand kilometers, its base are various compounds of silicon. The mantle is surrounded by a relatively small core, liquid and predominantly iron. Significantly inferior to the earthly "heart," it makes a significant contribution to the mass of Venus: it is about a quarter of it.

Features of the core of the planet deprive it of its own magnetic field. As a result, Venus is exposed to the solar wind and is not protected from the so-called hot flow anomaly, explosions of colossal magnitude, occurring eerily often and capable, according to the researchers' assumption, to absorb the Morning Star.

The Study of the Earth

All the characteristics that Venus possesses: the color of the planet, the greenhouse effect, the movement of magma, and so on, are also studied, in order to apply the obtained data to our planet. It is assumed that the structure of the surface of the second planet from the Sun can give an idea of how the young Earth looked about 4 billion years ago.

The data on atmospheric gases tell the researchers about the time when Venus was just forming. They are also used in constructing theories about the development of the Blue Planet.

To a number of scientists the sizzling heat and the lack of water on Venus seem possible to the future of the Earth.

Artificial Cultivation of Life

With forecasts that promise the death of the Earth, projects are also connected with the settlement of other planets with organic life. One of the candidates is Venus. An ambitious plan is to spread in the atmosphere and on the surface of blue-green algae, which are the central link in the theory of the origin of life on our planet. Delivered microorganisms in theory can significantly reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide and lead to a reduction in pressure on the planet, after which it becomes possible to further colonize the planet. The only insurmountable obstacle for the realization of the conceived is the lack of water necessary for the prosperity of algae.

Certain hopes in this matter are placed on some types of mold, but so far all the developments remain at the level of theory, since sooner or later they face considerable difficulties.

Venus - the planet of the solar system is truly mysterious. The research carried out answered a lot of questions related to it, and at the same time gave birth to new ones, something even more complicated. The morning star is one of the few cosmic bodies bearing a woman's name, and like a beautiful girl, she attracts her views, takes the thoughts of scientists, and therefore there is a high probability that the researchers will tell us a lot more about our neighbor.