The science
Although the second planet from the Sun is named after the Roman goddess of love, Venus is not at all beautiful, at least not hospitable. First, its surface temperature reaches 900 degrees Fahrenheit, making it the hottest planet in the solar system. Secondly, the pressure of carbon dioxide is 92 times higher than the pressure in the earth's atmosphere. Plus, the opaque clouds that block our vision of the surface of the globe are riddled with sulfuric acid.
As you probably already guessed, studying this planet is extremely difficult. However, step by step, scientists are learning more and more about the Earth's closest planetary neighbor. Below are some of the biggest mysteries about the brightest object in our sky after the Sun and Moon.
"Ruins" of climate
Venus is sometimes called Earth's "evil twin." In terms of size, composition and orbital position, Venus is actually the most similar to our own. At the beginning of the existence of Venus, according to scientists, its world was very similar to what we have now on Earth: oceans, a cooler climate, etc.
But over several billion years, the greenhouse effect, as it turned out, took its toll. Venus is a third closer to the Sun than Earth, therefore it receives twice as much sunlight. This additional heat caused more and faster evaporation of water from its surface. In turn, the water vapor absorbed more heat, causing further heating of the planet, which provoked even more evaporation, and so on, until the oceans disappeared completely.
"So this is the mechanism that turned Venus into what we know it to be today," says David Grinspoon, curator of astrobiology at the Denver Museum of Science and Nature. Finding out exactly how and when Venus "dried up" will help model the further behavior of the Earth's climate, as well as avoid its fate.
Rotating atmosphere
Venus rotates around its axis much more slowly than the Earth: one day on Venus lasts 243 Earth days, which is more than a year on Venus, which takes 224 Earth days. At the same time, the clouds on Venus move at a speed of 360 km/h, which is 60 times the speed of the planet’s rotation around its axis (the winds are partly caused by the planet’s rotation). Proportionally, if we compare such wind gusts with what is happening on Earth, but the equatorial winds should blow at a speed of 9650 km/h.
Thus, Grinspoon emphasizes, the super-rotation of the Venusian atmosphere is due to the presence of a large amount of energy supplied along with sunlight, however, the full mechanism of operation still remains unknown.
Reverse direction
All planets in the solar system orbit the sun in a counterclockwise direction when viewed from the solar north pole. But things are completely different on Venus, whose rotation (like Uranus) is in the opposite direction. On Venus, in other words, the sun rises in the west and sets in the east.
This is probably due to a cosmic collision that occurred at the very beginning of the planet’s existence. Further study and understanding of the structure and composition of Venus will help to recreate a complete picture of the events that took place.
Flash
The question of whether lightning actually originates from the clouds of Venus is still open. Although the Venus Express spacecraft “heard” the characteristic electromagnetic statistical discharges that lightning produces on Earth, the camera has not yet recorded a single flash that would confirm these suspicions.
The very formation of this lightning is also no less mysterious. On Earth, ice crystals inside clouds play a key role in this process, and these ingredients are in great short supply in Venus's hyperarid atmosphere.
Extraterrestrial life hotspot?
Although unlikely, Grinspoon says there is a plausible argument that there may be life on the planet, not on the superheated surface of Venus, of course, but in its clouds. About 30 miles above the surface, conditions are extremely similar to those on Earth, meaning the pressure and temperature are Earth-like. Living organisms can use sunlight or chemicals in clouds as energy. Of course, these creatures must tolerate the presence of sulfuric acid, however, extremophiles on Earth have colorfully demonstrated to us that life can thrive even in the harshest conditions. "This is just one reason why Venus' clouds should be studied more carefully," Grinspoon concluded.
Venus is a planet we have forgotten, which has finally been remembered. The people were too carried away by Mars and its mysteries, leaving the riddles of the Morning Star for later. The Venus Express space mission is an attempt to understand the mysteries of the planet after more than 10 years of oblivion. But, as expected, these mysteries were not so much solved as new mysteries were discovered.
There are two reasons explaining why, of all the terrestrial planets, Venus continues to be the focus of researchers' attention. Firstly, as the closest analogue of the Earth, it can be considered as one of its ultimate models; secondly, Venus can serve as a unique testing ground for experiments on actively influencing climate processes on a global scale. Venus is directly related to a purely earthly, utilitarian problem - to find the limits of regulation in natural-climatic mechanisms and relationships, beyond which the continuously expanding anthropogenic impacts on the climate could turn out to be irreversible. Naturally, the question of what led to the development of such specific natural conditions on Venus comes to the fore. Were they predetermined by the natural nature of the primary fractionation of the substance of the interior of Venus or by subsequent evolution due to the proximity of the planet to the Sun?
Venus has been known to science since prehistoric times. It is the brightest object in the sky after the Sun and Moon. No star among the countless myriads twinkling in the night sky shines as amazingly as the planet Venus, even Sirius-Sothis, the dog star, is inferior to it. Venus is the queen among our planets, the jeweled crown of our solar system. “Light-bringing” Venus (also Aphrodite in the Greek tradition) appeared on the horizon in the predawn hour, foreshadowing the imminent light of broad day. In the sky, Venus in its mysterious, alluring brilliance appears before the earthly observer either in the evening or in the morning, and in ancient times people took it for two stars: the evening one - Vesper and the morning one - Lucifer. However, the ancient Greek scientist Pythagoras already knew that in reality it was one star. Later, this star was given the name of the goddess of love and beauty - Venus, who embodied the image of a beautiful woman. Venus was the patroness of flowering gardens, the goddess of spring, fertility, growth and flowering of all fruit-bearing forces of nature.
VENUS IN ANCIENT MYTHS AND TRADES
Mythological knowledge will always be useful, because Greek and Roman mythology has entered modern life, and familiarity with it is necessary for every cultured person:
Many expressions from ancient mythology are still found today: “Sisyphus’s work”, “Ariadne’s thread”, “apple of discord”, “Trojan horse”, etc.;
Architects resort to the symbolism of myths - quadrigas with bronze Apollo, the patron of the arts, rush over the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and the Pushkin Drama Theater in St. Petersburg; mighty Atlases support the portico of the Hermitage;
The marble statues of the Summer Garden, Peterhof Park, the estate in Arkhangelsk and other museums of the world remind us of the gods and heroes of ancient Greece and Rome;
The names of some months (January, March, May, June) are reminiscent of the Roman gods - Janus, Mars, Maia, Juno;
The names of mythological characters are the planets of the solar system:
Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto;
The best paintings are based on mythological subjects, which are stored in art galleries, museums, and private collections and are the property of civilization.
The Birth of Venus, William Adolphe Bougereau
To understand the plots and meaning of works of art, a museum visitor must be familiar with the basics of ancient mythology. Without familiarizing yourself with the ancient myths, it is impossible to even read the works of the great Russian poet A.S. Pushkin, where such expressions as “Parnassus’ heights shine,” “At the light games of Terpsichore,” “Cypris’s charming darling,” “Centaur’s avenging gift” are mentioned. , “The dear gift of Bacchus”, “Flies like feathers from the lips of Aeolus”, “like windy Venus”.
Venus in Roman mythology was originally the goddess of spring and gardens, perhaps the personification of the concept venia - the mercy of the gods. Due to the popularity of the legend about Aeneas, she began to be identified with his legendary mother, Aphrodite, as the goddess of love and beauty, and was especially revered as the patroness of the descendants of Aeneas - the Romans. Based on her famous temple in Sicily on Mount Erix, she bore the epithet Erucina. Gaius Julius Caesar revered her as the progenitor of the Julian family (Genetrix). In literature, first of all, she is the goddess of love passion, the mother of Cupid. In late Rome, her cult merged with the orgiastic cults of Astarte, Isis, Cybele, etc. In connection with the cult of Attis, the veneration of the dying and resurrected lover of Venus, Adonis, became especially popular. The cult of Venus reached its apotheosis of popularity in the 1st century BC. e. , when the famous senator Sulla, who believed that the goddess brings him happiness, and Guy Pompey, who built a temple and dedicated it to Venus the Victorious, began to count on her patronage.
Venus was awarded such epithets as merciful, cleansing, shorn, in memory of the courageous Roman women who, during the war with the Gauls, cut their hair in order to weave ropes from it. In literary works, Venus acted as the goddess of love and passion, among the Greeks - Aphrodite; among the Babylonians - Ishtar. The name of the planet apparently comes from the fact that Venus is the brightest of the planets known to the ancients. To designate the Sun, Moon and planets, astronomers use signs of very ancient origin. The sign of Venus is the image of a hand mirror - an emblem of femininity and beauty: ♀.
THE BEAUTY VENUS IMITATES CYNTHIA.
Venus is the planet closest to us. Observing Venus, scientists have found that it moves around the Sun in an almost circular orbit at an average distance of 108 million kilometers from it. The orbital period of Venus (Venus year) is 224.7 Earth days. It is now known that Venus rotates around its axis in the opposite direction - from east to west, and not from west to east, like the Earth and most other planets. The consequence of this is that the Sun rises and sets twice on the planet's horizon during the Venusian year. For an observer on the surface of Venus, the Sun rises in the west and sets in the east, although in reality the cloudy atmosphere completely obscures the sky. This is one of the mysteries of Venus. The unusual thing about Venus's rotation is that it is very slow (one Venusian day is equal to 243 Earth days, which is slightly longer than a Venusian year). In addition, Venus's orbital and daily rotation periods are synchronized in such a way that it always faces the same side toward Earth when the planets are at their minimum distance from each other. We don't know whether this is a consequence of resonance or a coincidence - this is also the mystery of Venus. In its orbital movement, it periodically occupies two diametrically opposite positions relative to the Sun and Earth, called the inferior conjunction, when Venus is between the Sun and the Earth, and the superior conjunction, when the Sun is between the Earth and Venus. The relative position of the Earth, Venus and the Sun in inferior conjunction, when they are located on the same line, is called the phenomenon of the passage of Venus through the disk of the Sun (transit of Venus across the disk of the Sun) - (APPENDIX). This picture can be observed even with the naked eye. However, not everyone can witness this phenomenon, since the frequency of transit of Venus is 8 and 105.5; 8 and 121.5 years. In the last century, this phenomenon was observed on December 9, 1874 and December 8, 1882. And only on June 8, 2004 and June 6, 2012 it will happen again.
Venus is visible to the naked eye and you can observe its changing phases. In 1610, the Italian astronomer Galileo, observing Venus through a telescope, first discovered and described a consistent change in its phases, similar to the Moon. At first he was not sure of the correctness of his observation and did not dare to report it openly. Therefore, Galileo encrypted the message about his discovery into a Latin anagram phrase and only later, having finally become convinced of the correctness of his assumption, deciphered it by rearranging the letters in it: “The mother of love imitates the views of Cynthia.” The mother of love is the goddess Venus, and Cynthia is one of the ancient names for the Moon. Galileo's observation of this phenomenon was an important proof of Copernicus' famous heliocentric theory of the solar system.
At inferior conjunction, when Venus is at its closest distance from the Earth, it always faces us with its unlit side, and therefore its largest phase is completely invisible to us. Departing from this position of “new version”, the planet takes the form of a sickle, the diameter of which is smaller the wider the sickle is. They say that the famous mathematician K. Gauss, once observing Venus on the balcony through a telescope, called his elderly mother, hoping to amaze her with the view of the phases of the planet. To his surprise, his mother, clinging to the eyepiece and not at all surprised, only asked why the “horns” of the sickle were facing the wrong way. As it turned out, the woman had seen Venus in the form of a sickle all her life (and a telescope, as you know, gives an inverted image)! So, everyone, having checked the visibility conditions of the planets, can check their vision during periods when Venus is in a minor crescent phase (near the inferior conjunction with the Sun). But we warn you: this test is very tough; if you don’t see a sickle, you’d better take binoculars, at least theatrical ones!
ATMOSPHERE OF THE PLANET: HISTORY OF DISCOVERY.
This planet is one of the most beautiful luminaries in the sky. During periods of favorable visibility of the planet, it is impossible to confuse it in the sky with anything due to its high brightness (astronomers call it “brilliance”). Perhaps only against the background of dawn - with Jupiter, and even then, perhaps for the first time, since the difference in the color of the luminaries is significant. Jupiter has a distinct yellowish tint, while Venus appears completely white to most observers. Venus is sometimes called one of the most mysterious planets in the solar system: a dense cloud cover envelops its surface. The atmosphere on Venus was first discovered by M. B. Lomonosov. In 1761, the first Russian academician Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov, observing Venus at the moment of its passage across the solar disk, first discovered a powerful atmosphere on the planet, as described in his work “The Appearance of Venus on the Sun Observed at the St. Petersburg Imperial Academy of Mayan Sciences on the 26th day of 1761 “Wrote: “Based on these notes, Mr. Councilor Lomonosov argues that the planet Venus is surrounded by a noble air atmosphere, the same [if only not greater] than the one that surrounds our globe.” This phenomenon occurred later, already in the twentieth century. , was called the “Lomonosov phenomenon”. The atmosphere of Venus turned out to be so “noble” that even modern powerful optical telescopes are unable to look behind its dense cloudy curtain, which, like the veil of an oriental beauty, hides its appearance from us.
But what does the atmosphere of Venus consist of and what are its clouds, which, reflecting sunlight well, make this planet the brightest luminary in the sky (of course, besides the Sun and Moon)? These questions remained unanswered for a long time. On Venus, the atmospheric pressure on the surface reaches 90 atmospheres (i.e., the same as the pressure in the Earth's oceans at a depth of 1 km). The planet's atmosphere consists mainly of carbon dioxide dust and acid vapors. It is impossible to see the surface of Venus, since it is covered with an impenetrable, many-kilometer-long veil of clouds. Due to such a dense atmosphere, the planet has an extremely powerful greenhouse effect, as a result of which the surface temperature of Venus rises from 400K to 740K (the melting point of lead). The gas shell of Venus is a giant greenhouse. It is capable of transmitting solar heat, but does not let it out and absorbs the radiation of the planet itself. The absorbers are carbon dioxide and droplets of concentrated (75-80%) sulfuric acid. Several years ago, French scientists discovered traces of hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acid vapors and even carbon monoxide in the atmosphere of Venus. The presence of these substances could indicate active volcanic activity. The continuous cloudiness and proximity of Venus to the Sun led scientists to believe that the climatic conditions on this planet were similar to those on Earth during the Carboniferous period of its history. Then, under the clouds in the humid atmosphere of the Earth, a hothouse climate was created and powerful vegetation developed rapidly. A severe blow to these ideas was dealt by measurements of radio emissions from Venus carried out in recent years. Repeated many times, they said that the physical conditions on this planet are completely unsuitable for life. It's extremely hot there: Venus is hotter than Mercury, despite the fact that it is almost twice as far from the Sun. Dense cloud cover is highly reflective (which explains the brightness of Venus) and does not transmit solar thermal radiation well.
However, there is a hypothesis according to which the lower part of the Venusian atmosphere, up to 20 kilometers high, is filled with dust particles. And since the clouds are white, this hypothesis suggests that the dust is a white powder of carbonates (calcium and magnesium). Venus probably once had large reserves of water, just like Earth, but all the water has evaporated and Venus is now completely dry. The Earth would have suffered the same fate if it had been a little closer to the Sun. We can learn a lot about the Earth by trying to understand why Venus, similar to it in basic parameters, became completely different.
So, the landscape of Venus appears inhospitable and untempting to us: there is no water on the surface - all the moisture is in a heavy and thick atmosphere, saturated with carbon dioxide, almost devoid of oxygen. The sun and stars are hidden by dense clouds. There is neither winter nor summer: quiet, dark, hot.
SURFACE AND RELIEF OF VENUS.
No details are visible on the surface of Venus even with the largest telescopes. The planet's atmosphere is so dense that even from spacecraft only the movement of large clouds is noticeable. The planet's topography consists of vast plains intersected by mountain ranges and plateau-type hills. Mountainous areas look like earth's continents. The two "continents" of Venus - the Land of Ishtar and the Land of Aphrodite - are comparable in area to the continental United States. The land of Ishtar is distinguished by the Maxwell Mountains, which rise 11 km above the average level, i.e. they are higher than Earth’s Everest. Along the eastern edge of Aphrodite's Land, two rift valleys extend for 2200 km, located below the average level of the Venusian surface. The Beta mountain region consists of two huge shield-shaped volcanoes similar to the volcanoes of the Hawaiian Islands. They, like their terrestrial counterparts, rise to 4000 m, but are much larger in area. Lowlands, similar to Earth's ocean basins, occupy only a sixth of the planet's surface. There are also impact craters on Venus, similar to those on the Moon. For large meteorites, asteroids and comet nuclei, even a dense atmosphere is not a barrier. In satellite images, we were able to see some unexpected aspects of the process of formation of impact craters in the conditions of Venus. It turned out that in many craters, part of the emissions flow as a fluid substance, forming extensive streams, usually directed in one direction from the crater, tens of kilometers long, and sometimes more. It is unclear whether this flow is a superheated impact melt or a suspension of finely clastic solid matter and melt droplets suspended in dense (65 kg/m3) gas in the near-surface atmosphere.
Data from the Magellan spacecraft's radar show that much of Venus's surface is covered by lava flows. The volcanism of Venus indicates the activity of its interior. However, the manifestations of this activity are not global. On Venus, the flow of liquid mantle is blocked by a thick basaltic crust and most of it does not reach the surface. Venus should have a liquid iron core, but there is no movement of matter - there is no movement of charged particles, i.e., electric current, and therefore the planet’s own magnetic field should not arise. However, the results of space research bring a new and unexpected perspective on this problem. Although Venus does not have its own magnetic field, the interplanetary magnetic field carried by the solar wind creates a kind of “envelope” around it and prevents this wind from penetrating deep into the atmosphere. Measurements made with the MAG magnetometer showed that the field "wraps" around the day side of the atmosphere and "bends" to the night side, and the field configuration there is such that it most likely contributes to the acceleration of the plasma. And this leads to the loss of atmospheric ions. For the first time, it was possible to carry out direct observations of the plasma environment of the planet during the period of minimum solar activity. The picture of interaction with the solar wind that scientists saw is very different from existing observations at solar maximum. With few exceptions, all landscape details on Venus are named after women.
There are old volcanoes on Venus, but whether there are active ones is unknown. But volcanism, according to one version, is the reason for the highest concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and, consequently, the greenhouse effect. The lower atmosphere, consisting mainly of carbon dioxide, is so thick that it is only slightly inferior to water. In some areas it is a hot, bare rocky desert; in others there are mountains, craters, stones, and giant cracks. Dense multi-kilometer clouds of sulfuric acid mixed with chlorine and fluorine compounds, making the planet brilliant when viewed from the outside, and twilight when viewed from the surface by an observer. Hot and dry rocky valleys, ancient volcanoes, mountain peaks covered with metallic “frost”. Needless to say, Venus is a very exotic place. But there is reason to believe that in the distant past, Venus could have had water in sufficient quantities for the origin of life.
"Venus is more Earth-like than Mars," says David Grinspoon, a space scientist at the Boulder, Colorado, Research Institute and another prominent proponent of the idea that Venus' acid clouds may contain droplets with life. Moreover, many newly discovered exoplanets will probably resemble Venus. We must carefully study our closest neighbor."
SPACE CARRIAGES PENETRATE THE SECRETS OF VENUS.
The study of Venus using spacecraft began in our country back in the 60s with attempts to deliver a research probe to this planet and take measurements in its atmosphere and on the surface. In 1961, the first space robots of our country were sent to the planet: “Venera-1, - 2”. In 1962, the Mariner 2 spacecraft visited Venus. In total, Venus was explored by more than 20 spacecraft, and the first interplanetary stations “Venera - 9, - 10”, which landed on another planet and received the first photographs of its surface. In the images of Venera-15, -16, extended cracks of unknown origin were discovered. It remains a mystery what kind of liquid cut these channels. The easiest way would be to think that they are the result of thermal erosion by a flowing basaltic lava flow. But calculations show that on a path 7000 km long, the basaltic lava flow does not have enough heat to flow non-stop and melt the substance of the basalt plain, cutting a channel in it. Most likely these are exotic liquids like molten sulfur carbonates.
An important stage in space research is the exploration of the planet by the Venus Express spacecraft, launched on November 9, 2005 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The flight to Venus lasted 155 days. The duration of the main mission was 500 Earth days (a little more than two Venus days). The main object of study of the Venus Express instruments was the planet’s atmosphere, since it is the key to understanding the mysteries of Venus. In March 2007, the Venus Express mission was extended until May 2009, an additional two Venusian days. Most likely, the probe will continue to carry out its scientific mission - it will have enough fuel resources until 2013. Soon it will be joined by other space stations: in 2010, the Japanese Venus Climate Orbiter is due to arrive at Venus. By comparing the data obtained by both missions, more information about the Morning Star can be obtained.
The European interplanetary station Venus Express has obtained new data describing the dynamics of clouds on Venus. The planet was found to have a weak magnetic field, similar to the Earth's magnetic field, but much weaker. On November 28, 2007, the results of the main mission of the European interplanetary probe were officially presented at a press conference at the headquarters of the European Space Agency (ESA). The device detected a bright, uniform haze rich in sulfuric acid. It is formed when, through an unknown process, water vapor and sulfur dioxide rise from the lower layers into the upper atmosphere of Venus. There, when exposed to sunlight, these molecules break down and then some of them recombine to form volatile sulfuric acid. Venus Express also revealed new features on the dayside of the planet. When solar heat is absorbed, “gas pockets” or “convection cells” are formed in the atmosphere. You can compare this process to boiling milk in a saucepan. The entire illuminated side of Venus seems to be “boiling.” During the observations, another mysterious phenomenon was discovered associated with the glow of the haze in the upper layers of the Venusian atmosphere. Haze consists of aerosol particles that reflect sunlight well. On January 13, 2007, two-thirds of the planet's southern hemisphere suddenly glowed brightly, as if a very intense formation of fog particles had occurred. The mechanism of this phenomenon is still unclear. The glow disappeared just as suddenly a few days later, when the aerosols coagulated (“precipitated”) and the haze dissipated.
THE UNSOLVED SECRETS OF VENUS.
Venus has actually inundated us with information. Today, the most striking achievement is the discovery of lightning on Venus. Until now, lightning has only been seen on Earth, Jupiter and Saturn. Lightning was detected by magnetic signals accompanying electrical discharges. They raged under the spacecraft. The lightning was special, it erupts in clouds consisting not of water, but of sulfuric acid - another touch to the completely non-resort landscapes of Venus. Lightning is one mystery of the evolution of the planet. They affect chemical processes in the atmosphere. This is how, for example, nitric acid is formed on Earth. Attempts will be made to detect nitrogen oxides of “thunderstorm origin” in the atmosphere of Venus. The processes occurring in the atmosphere of Venus sometimes simply defy any explanation. For example, “superrotation” is a mysterious phenomenon in the Venusian atmosphere that causes it to rush over the surface of the planet 20 times faster than it rotates around its axis. Where does this terrible, never-ending hurricane get its energy from, and why is it not slowed down by the surface - this is another mystery. Why did acid haze spread over Venus?
There is a lot of data about ruptures and folds on the surface of Venus. An increasing number of astronomers are inclined to think that real oceans could exist on Venus. The greenhouse effect in the early stages of the planet's existence could have been inhibited by the intense formation of clouds. It is possible that during this time life could have arisen on Venus. But there is no water on it. It was there once, but almost all of it has boiled away.
In the light of modern research, we can say that ancient legends and myths carried traces of real events. Within the memory of mankind, a catastrophe occurred on Venus. The encyclopedist writer Varro, who lived in 116-27 BC. e. , reports that during the flood Venus changed its color, size and shape. Scientific facts about Venus can confirm this version. In particular, the presence of a paradoxically slow rotation of Venus around its own axis: in the opposite direction compared to other planets. This allows us to explain the fact that the Cheops pyramid was dedicated to her.
But there remain unsolved mysteries of the planet that will allow us to better understand the fate of the Earth.
Venus appears in the sky immediately after sunset, when it is still light, and floats in the rays of the evening dawn. Or in the morning, when all the stars go out, she alone continues to shine for a long time and remains in the sky until the sun rises. Therefore, in the old days, she was perceived as two different luminaries, similar to each other: the morning Venus was named Vesper (Phosphorus, Hesperus), and the evening Venus was Lucifer. Its mysterious brilliance inspired poets. “Golden Vesper walks in the blue field of heaven” - this is what A.S. Pushkin wrote about Venus.
There is probably no other planet that has so many names and titles. In Rus' they called her Dennitsa, just like the morning dawn. Among the astronomers of Ancient Hellas, she bore the name of Aphrodite - the goddess of love and beauty, who could pacify even the rude aggressive Ares (Mars) - the god of war. The Romans called this goddess and planet Venus. Among the Turkic peoples, the beautiful planet bears the female name Chulpan, from which the name of the flower “tulip” may have come. In more ancient times, its light evoked in the minds of people the images of Ishtar, Astarte, Isis - female deities who personified love and beauty. The beautiful shine of Venus has long misled scientists, science fiction writers, and poets. On the distant star Venus
The sun is fiery and golden. On Venus, ah on Venus
The trees have blue castings. There are free ringing waters everywhere,
Rivers, geysers, waterfalls sing the song of freedom at noon,
At night they glow like lamps. (N.S. Gumilev).
In “Planet of Storms” - a fantastic story by Alexander Kazantsev - Venus looks like a young planet, similar to Earth in the era of dinosaurs. English and American science fiction writers dedicated their works to the colonization of Venus by humans. J. Adamaski wrote how the crew of a flying saucer took him to Venus and back. Everyone wanted the neighboring planet, so “similar” to Earth, to have at least some kind of life. The Venusian euphoria continued until the first launches of space rockets with research equipment. As the results of space research have shown, Venus is a very inhospitable planet.
The astronomical symbol of this planet is represented as a ball hovering above a cross.
The landscape is very unattractive, just like the landscape of the greenhouse model:
Venus, characterized by Pythagoras as the sol alter, the second Sun, because of its majestic radiance - which has no equal in any of the celestial bodies - was the first to attract the attention of the ancient cosmogonists. Therefore, various myths about the mysterious planet were created.
THE TRAGEDY OF THE PLANET VENUS, SEALED IN THE PYRAMIDS.
Ancient Egyptian legends and myths tell that the beginning of their history goes back to a fantastic time, when the gods lived on earth with people. They were the gods Osiris, Set and the goddesses Isis and Nephthys. Osiris and Isis formed a married couple and became the first rulers of Egypt. Isis gave birth to one son Horus (Horus), who after the death of Osiris became the first pharaoh. According to legend, a race of gods ruled Egypt for many millennia. This time in myths was called the "Golden Age". In the chronology of the dynasties of kings, the Egyptians included not only all the pharaohs of the historical period (lasting about 3000 years), but also, for good reason, mentioned a fantastic era in which Egypt was ruled by gods and demigods, the last of them being the god Horus. For example, according to the chronology of the Egyptian priest Maneto, the total age of Egypt was 30 thousand years. The Egyptians claimed that the gods built the pyramids at Giza during the Golden Age. This idea was later adopted by the Greeks, who believed that Hermes (aka the god Thoth) built the pyramids. When Egypt was ruled by human kings, each pharaoh who ascended the throne was given the name Hora, representing the divine inheritance of power. The pharaoh was considered a living image of the god Horus.
Space Legends of the East say that people lived on Venus who were a whole step ahead of the humanity of Earth. They appeared on Earth as teachers of young humanity and were remembered by earthlings in the form of gods who came from heaven, who at a certain time lived on Earth together with people during the era of the “Golden Age”.
The Polish researcher of the Egyptian pyramids, V. Zamarovsky, in his book “Their Majesties’ Pyramids,” noticed a strangeness in the location of the small pyramids near the Cheops pyramid. “Also strange is the position of the satellite pyramids of Cheops, standing east of the main pyramid, although they were usually built to the south, as for the pyramids of Khafre and Mikerin." The companion pyramids of the tomb of Menkaure are completely different in style. Following the cosmic version, it is logical to assume that the small pyramids depicted the satellites of the corresponding planets: Earth, Mars, Venus. For the Earth there will be complete agreement with this version: near the tomb of Khafre there is one small pyramid, symbolizing the Moon. In this case, Mars at that time had three satellites instead of the present two: Phobos and Deimos; Venus also had three satellites. Since Venus currently does not have a satellite, it can be assumed that a catastrophe occurred in those distant times. The nature of the catastrophe can be interpreted in such a way that by the moment of time recorded by the pyramid plan, the satellite system of Venus had disintegrated. This is what led to a change in the color, shape and size of the “star” Venus, observed from Earth.
The relative position of the satellite pyramids and their main pyramids from the Center:
1 - pyramid of Menkaure; 2 - Khafra; 3 – Khufu
At the same time, the mass of the Venus planetary-satellite system decreased by 32%. In accordance with what has been said, this mass was redistributed in the Solar System. One satellite could turn into a new planet Mercury, another could lose its orbital angular momentum during a catastrophe and be absorbed by the Sun, and the third satellite, having received additional energy, could be thrown into a higher orbit, for example, into the orbit of the asteroid belt.
By checking the relationships between the volumes of the pyramids and the masses of the corresponding planets, we arrive at the following data. The ratio of the volumes of the pyramids of Menkaure and Khafre is 0.117, which is very close to the ratio of the masses of the planets Mars and Earth, equal to 0.11. The ratio of the volumes of the pyramids of Khufu and Khafre is 1.19, which contradicts the ratio of the masses of Venus and Earth, equal to 0.82. We come to the conclusion that as a result of the catastrophe, Venus should lose 32% of its mass, which looks very unrealistic in a very short time by astronomical standards. The collapse of the Venus satellite system led to the destruction of living conditions on the planet Venus. This can explain, in particular, the presence of a paradoxically slow rotation of Venus around its own axis: in the opposite direction compared to other planets and with the duration of its day equal to 243 Earth days. Cosmogony cannot explain such an anomalous phenomenon based on the evolutionary concept. This means that Venus still experienced some kind of catastrophe in its history? According to Varro, a catastrophe also occurred on Earth in the form of the Great Flood, which swept away the specific results of this era; some memories remained in legends and myths. The cause of the flood must be sought after the collapse of the satellite system of Venus. The fall of one of the hypothetical satellites on the Sun (estimated to have a mass 2.5 times greater than the mass of the planet Mercury) should cause a powerful surge in solar activity, and the interaction of a barrage of solar wind with the Earth’s geomagnetic field gave rise to a “magnetic strike” that provoked a global earthquake on Earth which ended with a flood.
We come to the following conclusion: the astronomical plan of the pyramids reflected the time of the Great Flood on Earth, a phenomenon preceded by the catastrophe of Venus. Only this can explain the image of Venus on the plan in the past tense. As for Mars, this planet suffered a catastrophe later. This is evidenced by the current absence of the third satellite of the “red planet”.
The legends of the peoples of the East are consistent with the above conclusion (the book "Cosmic Legends of the East", 1996). They say that people lived on Venus who were a whole step ahead of humanity on Earth. They appeared on Earth as teachers of young humanity and were remembered by earthlings in the form of gods who came from heaven, who at a certain time lived on Earth together with people during the era of the “Golden Age”.
In the light of the revealed data, it can be said that ancient legends and myths bore traces of real events. The ancient gods must be aliens of a highly developed civilization from Venus. Thus, in the memory of mankind, information is stored that a catastrophe occurred on Venus that destroyed it. This scenario of events allows us to explain the mystery of why the greatest pyramid, the Pyramid of Cheops, is dedicated to Venus.
A huge earthquake and a great global flood destroyed and swept away almost all the buildings and achievements of the golden age, leaving only insignificant evidence, legends and myths reflecting the real events of antiquity. The complex of the majestic Egyptian pyramids in Giza with the legendary Sphinx is not only the tomb of the demigods-pharaohs, it is undoubted evidence of an older time than the era of the Egyptian pharaohs. It is intended, according to Ulyanovsk scientist Evgeny Menshov, to perpetuate the memory of the disappeared Venusian civilization, to convey a message to earthlings about its history, development and causes of death. This is an ancient warning monument about threatening cosmic and planetary cataclysms. After all, the cause of the death of a highly developed civilization could not have been a collision with a comet, but, for example, a man-made or environmental disaster. Earthlings have yet to finally understand the essence of the cosmic idea of the Egyptian pyramids.
The following considerations support this version. Firstly, the hypothesis that Mercury is a former satellite of Venus is not new, although it has not been proven, and, in any case, the special genesis of this tiny planet is undoubted. Secondly, the bodies that make up the asteroid belt are clearly of different natures and different origins; Moreover, their sizes vary greatly - from
A MODERN LOOK AT THE BEAUTY VENUS.
Currently, Venus appears to be a planet with impossible conditions for any life. Radio observations essentially marked the beginning of a new stage in the study of Venus. Only radio waves were able to bring from the surface of Venus, reliably hidden from observation by a dense atmosphere, some physical characteristics that made it possible to build hypothetical models of the atmosphere of Venus.
Radar methods made it possible to determine the direction and period of Venus's own rotation. It turned out that Venus rotates in the direction opposite to the direction of rotation of the Earth and other planets of the solar system. The rotation period of Venus relative to the stars is about 244 Earth days. This fact is unclear and unexplained. Therefore, scientists rightly call Venus a mysterious planet. And despite the fact that all the powerful technology of planetary astronomy - radio telescopes and radars equipped with the most sensitive quantum amplifiers and giant antennas, optical telescopes with infrared receivers and advanced spectral equipment - was aimed at obtaining new information about the physical characteristics of the planet, the interpretation of the data obtained was not possible unambiguous and gave rise to various hypotheses, as in ancient times.
The Venus Express spacecraft explores the planet's atmospheric vortices.
VENUS IS THE CROVE MIRROR OF THE EARTH.
Venus was often called Earth's sister. Maybe this is a sister, but she’s not like that. Detailed studies of the air shell of Venus were carried out only in the middle of the 20th century. In terms of physical characteristics (mass, diameter, average density), Venus is in many ways similar to the Earth: it was even considered the “twin” of our planet.
Mass: 4.87 · 1024 kg, i.e. 0.82 Earth masses;
Diameter: 12 · 102 km;
Density:5250 kg/m³;
Surface temperature: maximum +480°C;
Gravity acceleration: 8.9 m/s²;
Average distance from the Sun: 0.72 a. e. (107.7 million km);
Venus moves around the Sun in a relatively regular circular orbit at a speed of 35 km/sec.
The research results give reason to assume that Venus was indeed once a “twin” of the Earth, not only in size, but also in the nature of the processes that occurred on the surface, but then their fates diverged.
“Venus once experienced a real climate catastrophe, but we don’t yet know why or when,” emphasizes David Grinspoon, an employee of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. “We now know that Venus was once more like Earth. While we cannot fully reveal this story, but the data obtained allows us to say that Venus Express will unlock the mystery of water on Venus."
The internal structure of Venus is probably very similar to Earth's: an iron core with a radius of about 3000 km, a molten mantle that is part of most planets. Recent data from Magellan studies of the gravitational field of Venus show that the crust on Venus is much harder and thicker than previously thought. As on Earth, convection in the mantle of Venus causes surface shaking that occurs in many small areas rather than being concentrated primarily toward tectonic plate boundaries as on Earth. It turns out that it was once a twin of the Earth and according to the processes that took place on its surface. However, then something happened to Venus, some kind of catastrophe that scientists have no idea about yet, something after which it turned into hell. Oceans of liquid water could have existed on Venus for two billion years, and it is possible that it was from there that life came to Earth. Astronomers know how to test this hypothesis, and intend to do so in the near future.
Venus has no satellites and thus no tides.
Whatever happened to Venus in the distant past, today it is a very strange planet, sharply different from the Earth, and from Mars, and from all the others known to us. A day on Venus lasts 243 Earth days, and its year lasts 228. It rotates not only slowly, but also “wrongly,” in the opposite direction than all the other planets in the solar system, except Uranus. And the Sun for her rises in the west. But, unfortunately, a more detailed study of Venus shows that in many aspects it is radically different from Earth.
A morning star named Venus, this mysterious planet has become even more mysterious after a nearly two-year visit by the European Venus Express spacecraft.
COLONIZATION OF VENUS.
Venus is a candidate for terraforming. According to one of the plans, it was supposed to spray genetically modified blue-green algae into the atmosphere of Venus, which, by converting carbon dioxide (the atmosphere of Venus is 96% carbon dioxide) into oxygen, would significantly reduce the greenhouse effect and lower the temperature on the planet. However, photosynthesis requires the presence of water, which, according to the latest data, is practically absent on Venus (even in the form of vapor in the atmosphere). Therefore, to implement such a project, it is necessary first of all to deliver water to Venus - for example, by bombarding it with water-ammonia asteroids or in another way.
It should be noted that at an altitude of ~ 50-100 km in the atmosphere of Venus, there are conditions under which some terrestrial bacteria can exist.
Venus is not the hospitable world it was once supposed to be. With its atmosphere of carbon dioxide, clouds of sulfuric acid and terrible heat, it is completely unsuitable for humans. Under the weight of this information, some hopes collapsed, but with the advent of the space age for Venus, the eyes of scientists are once again turned to it. The renewed interest in Venus may be driven by increasingly compelling evidence that Mars was never a warm planet with a thick atmosphere and lots of water on the surface. This means that in the solar system initially there were only two celestial bodies on which life could have originated - Venus and Earth. Moreover, two billion years of liquid water on Venus could lead not only to the emergence of life, but also to its significant evolution. And perhaps space research is the key to finding out how everything really happened.
Venus is one of the most mysterioust in our Solar System. Astrophysical research in recent decades has enriched our understanding of nature with many interesting facts. In 1995, the first exoplanet was found - a planet that orbits one of the stars in our Galaxy.
Today, more than seven hundred such exoplanets are known. Almost all of them orbit in very low orbits, but if the luminosity of the star is low, the temperature on the planet can range from 650-900 K (377-627 ° C). Such conditions are absolutely unacceptable for the only protein form of life known to us. But is it really the only one in the Universe, and is the denial of its other possible types “earthly chauvinism”?
It is unlikely that it will be possible to explore even the closest exoplanets using automatic spacecraft in the current century. It is quite possible, however, that the answer can be found very close by, on our closest neighbor in the solar system - Venus. The temperature of the planet's surface (735 K, or 462 ° C), the enormous pressure (87-90 atm) of its gas shell with a density of 65 kg/m³, consisting mainly of carbon dioxide (96.5%), nitrogen (3.5%) and traces of oxygen (less than 2·10-5%), are close to the physical conditions on many exoplanets of a special class. Recently, television images (panoramas) of the surface of Venus, obtained thirty years ago or more, have been re-examined and processed. They revealed several objects ranging in size from a decimeter to half a meter, which changed shape, position in the frame, appeared in some images and disappeared in others. And in a number of panoramas, precipitation was clearly observed that fell and melted on the surface of the planet.
In January, the journal “Astronomical Bulletin - Research of the Solar System” published the article “Venus as a natural laboratory for the search for life in conditions of high temperatures: about the events on the planet on March 1, 1982.” She did not leave readers indifferent, and opinions were divided - from extreme interest to angry disapproval, coming mainly from overseas. Both the article published then and this article do not claim that a hitherto unknown extraterrestrial life form was found on Venus, but only talk about phenomena that may be its signs. But, as one of the two main authors of the television experiment on the Venus spacecraft, Yu.M., successfully formulated the topic. Hektin, “we do not like the interpretation of the results as signs of life on the planet. However, we cannot find any other explanation for what we see in panoramas of the surface of Venus.”
It is probably appropriate to recall the aphorism that new ideas usually go through three stages: 1. How stupid! 2. There is something in this... 3. Well, who doesn’t know that!
The Venus devices, their video cameras and the first greetings from Venus
The first panoramas of the surface of Venus were transmitted to Earth by the Venera-9 and Venera-10 spacecraft back in 1975. Images were obtained using two optical-mechanical cameras with photomultipliers installed on each device (CCD matrices then existed only as an idea).
Photo 1. The surface of Venus at the landing site of the Venera 9 spacecraft (1975). Physical conditions on Venus: atmosphere CO2 96.5%, N2 3.5%, O2 less than 2·10-5; temperature - 735 K (462°C), pressure 92 MPa (approximately 90 atm). Daylight illumination from 400 lux to 11 klux. The meteorology of Venus is determined by sulfur compounds (SO2, SO3, H2SO4).
The camera pupils were located at a height of 90 cm from the surface, on both sides of the apparatus. The swinging mirror of each camera gradually rotated and created a panorama of 177 ° in width, a strip from horizon to horizon (3.3 km on flat ground), and the upper border of the image was two meters from the device. The resolution of the cameras made it possible to clearly see millimeter-scale surface details close up and objects about 10 meters in size near the horizon. The cameras were located inside the device and filmed the surrounding landscape through a sealed quartz window. The device gradually warmed up, but its designers firmly promised half an hour of operation. A processed fragment of the Venera-9 panorama is presented in photo 1. This is how a person on an expedition to Venus would see the planet.
In 1982, the Venera-13 and Venera-14 devices were equipped with more advanced cameras with light filters. The images were twice as sharp and consisted of 1000 vertical lines of 211 pixels, each 11 arcminutes in size. The video signal, as before, was transmitted to the orbital part of the device, the artificial satellite of Venus, which relayed the data to Earth in real time. During operation, the cameras transmitted 33 panoramas or fragments thereof, which allows us to trace the development of some interesting phenomena on the planet.
It is impossible to convey the scale of the technical difficulties that camera developers had to overcome. Suffice it to say that in the 37 years since then, the experiment has never been repeated. The development team was led by Doctor of Technical Sciences A.S. Selivanov, who managed to assemble a group of talented scientists and engineers. Let us mention here only the current Chief Designer of space instruments of JSC Space Systems, Candidate of Technical Sciences Yu.M. Gektin, his colleagues - candidate of physical and mathematical sciences A.S. Panfilova, M.K. Naraev, V.P. Suitcase. The first images from the surface of the Moon and from the orbit of Mars were also transmitted by the instruments they created.
In the very first panorama (“Venera-9”, 1975), the attention of several groups of experimenters was attracted by a symmetrical object of complex structure, about 40 centimeters in size, resembling a sitting bird with an elongated tail. Geologists cautiously called it “a strange rock with a rod-like protrusion and a lumpy surface.” “The Stone” was discussed in the final collection of articles “First panoramas of the surface of Venus” (editor M.V. Keldysh) and in a weighty volume of the international publication “VENUS”. I became interested in it on October 22, 1975, immediately as soon as the tape with the panorama crawled out of the bulky phototelegraph apparatus at the Evpatoria Center for Deep Space Communications.
Unfortunately, in the future, all my attempts to interest my colleagues at the Space Research Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences and the administration of the institute in the strange object were in vain. The idea of the impossibility of life existing at high temperatures turned out to be an insurmountable barrier to any discussion. Still, a year before the publication of M. V. Keldysh’s collection, in 1978, the book “Rediscovered Planets” was published, which contained an image of a “strange stone”. The comment on the photo was: “The details of the object are symmetrical about the longitudinal axis. Lack of clarity hides its contours, but... with some imagination you can see a fantastic inhabitant of Venus. On the right side of the picture... you can see an unusually shaped object about 30 cm in size. Its entire surface is covered with strange growths, and in their position you can see some kind of symmetry. To the left of the object protrudes a long straight white process, under which a deep shadow is visible, repeating its shape. The white appendage is very similar to a straight tail. On the opposite side, the object ends in a large white rounded protrusion, similar to a head. The entire object rests on a short thick “paw”. The resolution of the image is not enough to clearly distinguish all the details of the mysterious object... Did Venera 9 really land next to a living inhabitant of the planet? This is very hard to believe. Moreover, in the eight minutes that passed before the camera lens returned to the object, it did not change its position at all. This is strange for a living creature (unless it was damaged by the edge of the apparatus from which it is separated by centimeters). Most likely, we are seeing a stone of an unusual shape, similar to a volcanic bomb... With a tail.”
The sarcasm of the final phrase - “with a tail” - showed that opponents did not convince the author of the physical impossibility of life on Venus. The same publication says: “Let us imagine, however, that in some of the space experiments a living being was nevertheless found on the surface of Venus... The history of science shows that as soon as a new experimental fact appears, theorists, as a rule, they quickly find an explanation for him. One can even predict what this explanation would be. Very heat-resistant organic compounds have been synthesized that use the energy of π-electron bonds (one of the types of covalent bonds, the “sharing” of valence electrons of two atoms of a molecule. - Ed.). Such polymers can withstand temperatures up to 1000°C or more. Amazingly, some terrestrial bacteria use π-electron bonds in their metabolism, but not to increase heat resistance, but to bind atmospheric nitrogen (which inevitably requires enormous bond energy, reaching 10 eV or more). As you can see, nature created “blanks” for models of Venusian living cells even on Earth.”
The author returned to this topic in the books “Planeten” and “Parade of the Planets”. But in his strictly scientific monograph “Planet Venus” the hypothesis of life on the planet is not mentioned, since the question of the energy sources necessary for life in a non-oxidizing atmosphere remained (and continues to remain) unclear.
New missions. 1982
Photo 2. The Venera-13 apparatus during laboratory tests in 1981. In the center you can see the window of the television camera, covered with a lid.
Let’s leave the “strange stone” for a while. The next successful flights to the planet with the transmission of images from its surface were the Venera 13 and Venera 14 missions in 1982. The team of the Research and Production Association named after. S.A. Lavochkin created amazing devices, which were then called AMS.
With each new mission to Venus, they became more and more advanced, capable of withstanding enormous pressures and temperatures. The Venera-13 apparatus (photo 2), equipped with two television cameras and other instruments, descended in the equatorial zone of the planet.
Thanks to effective thermal protection, the temperature inside the devices rose quite slowly, their systems managed to transmit a lot of scientific data, high-definition panoramic images, including color ones, and with a low level of various interference. The transmission of each panorama took 13 minutes. The Venera 13 lander operated for a record long time on March 1, 1982. It would have continued to transmit more, but at the 127th minute, it is unclear who and why ordered it to stop receiving data from it. A command was sent from Earth to turn off the receiver on the orbiter, although the lander continued to send signals... Was it a concern for the orbiter so that its batteries would not run out, or something else, but didn’t priority remain with the lander?
Based on all the information transmitted, including that which until recently was considered to be corrupted by noise, the duration of Venera-13’s successful operation on the surface exceeded two hours. The images published in print were created by combining color-separated and black-and-white panoramas (photo 3). At a low level of interference, three images were sufficient for this.
Photo 3. Panorama of the surface of Venus at the landing site of the Venera-13 spacecraft. In the center is the landing buffer of the apparatus with the teeth of a turbulator, ensuring a smooth landing, above is the discarded white semi-cylindrical cover of the television camera window. Its diameter is 20 cm, height 16 cm. The distance between the teeth is 5 cm.
The excess information made it possible to restore the picture where, for a short time, the apparatus switched from surface images to transmitting the results of other scientific measurements. The published panoramas traveled around the world, were reprinted many times, then interest in them began to gradually fade away; even experts have come to the conclusion that the job has already been done...
What we managed to see on the surface of Venus
The new image analysis turned out to be very labor-intensive. People often ask why they waited more than thirty years. No, we didn't wait. Old data was turned to again and again, as processing tools improved and, let's say, observation and understanding of extraterrestrial objects improved. Promising results were obtained already in 2003-2006, and the most significant discoveries were made last year and the year before, and the work has not yet been completed. For the studies, we used sequences of primary images obtained over a fairly long period of operation of the device. On them one could try to detect some differences, understand what caused them (for example, wind), detect objects that differ in appearance from natural surface details, and note phenomena that escaped attention then, more than thirty years ago. During processing, we used the simplest and “linear” methods - adjusting brightness, contrast, blurring or sharpening. Any other means - retouching, adjustments or the use of any version of Photoshop - were completely excluded.
The most interesting are the images transmitted by the Venera 13 spacecraft on March 1, 1982. A new analysis of images of the surface of Venus revealed several objects that had the features noted above. For convenience, they were given conventional names, which, of course, do not reflect their real essence.
Photo 4. The lower part of a large “disk” object, 0.34 m in diameter, is visible on the right at the top border of the image.
A strange “disk” that changes its shape. The “disc” has a regular shape, apparently round, about 30 cm in diameter and resembles a large shell. In the panorama fragment in photo 4, only its lower half is visible, and the upper half is cut off by the frame border.
The position of the “disk” in subsequent images changes slightly due to a slight shift of the scanning camera when the device warms up. In photo 4, an elongated structure resembling a panicle is adjacent to the “disc”. Photo 5 shows sequential images of the “disk” (arrow a) and the surface near it, and at the bottom of the frames the approximate moment of the scanner field passing over the “disk” is indicated.
In the first two frames (32nd and 72nd minutes), the appearance of the “disc” and “broom” almost did not change, but at the end of the 72nd minute a short arc appeared in its lower part. On the third frame (86th minute) the arc became several times longer, and the “disk” began to divide into parts.
At the 93rd minute (frame 4) the “disk” disappeared, and in its place a symmetrical light object of approximately the same size appeared, formed by numerous V-shaped folds - “chevrons”, oriented approximately along the “panicle”.
Numerous large arcs, similar to the arc in the third frame, separated from the lower part of the chevrons. They covered the entire surface adjacent to the telephotometer cover (the white half-cylinder on the surface). Unlike the “broom”, a shadow is visible under the “chevrons”, which indicates their volume.
Photo 5. Changes in the position and shape of the “disk” (arrow a) and “chevron” (arrow b) objects. The approximate moment when the scanner passes the image of the “disk” is indicated at the bottom of the frames.
After 26 minutes, on the last frame (119th minute), the “disc” and “panicle” were completely restored and are clearly visible. The "chevrons" and arcs disappeared just as they appeared, possibly moving outside the image border. Thus, five frames of photo 5 demonstrate the full cycle of changes in the shape of the “disk” and the probable connection of the “chevrons” with both it and the arcs.
“Black flap” on the soil mechanical property meter. On the Venera-13 apparatus, among other instruments, there was a device for measuring soil strength in the form of a folding truss 60 cm long. After the apparatus landed, the latch holding the truss was released, and under the action of a spring the truss was lowered to the ground. The measuring cone (stamp) at its end, the kinetic energy of which was known, went deeper into the soil. The mechanical strength of the soil was assessed by the depth of its immersion.
Photo 6. An unknown “black flap” object appeared in the first 13 minutes after landing, wrapped around a conical measuring hammer, which was partially buried in the ground. The details of the mechanism are visible through the black object. Subsequent images (taken between 27 and 50 minutes after landing) show a clean hammer surface with no black flap.
One of the mission's objectives was to measure small components of the atmosphere and soil. Therefore, any separation from the apparatus of any particles, films, products of destruction or burning during descent into the atmosphere and landing was absolutely excluded; During ground tests, special attention was paid to these requirements. However, in the first image, obtained in the interval 0-13 minutes after landing, it is clearly visible that around the measuring cone, along its entire height, an unknown thin object stretched upward was wrapped - a “black flap” measuring about six centimeters in height (photo 6) . In subsequent panoramas taken after 27 and 36 minutes, this “black patch” is missing. It cannot be a defect in the image: clearer images show that some parts of the truss are projected onto the “flap”, while others are partially visible through it. A second object of this type was discovered on the other side of the device, under the dropped camera cover. It seems that their appearance is somehow related to the destruction of the soil by the measuring cone or landing apparatus. This assumption is indirectly confirmed by the observation of another similar object that appeared in the field of view of the cameras later.
The star of the screen is Scorpio. This most interesting object appeared approximately at the 90th minute, along with a semi-ring adjacent to it on the right (photo 7). What first attracted attention to him was, of course, his strange appearance. The assumption immediately arose that this was some kind of part that had separated from the apparatus that had begun to collapse. But then the device would quickly fail due to catastrophic overheating of its devices in the sealed compartment, into which the hot atmosphere would immediately penetrate under the influence of gigantic pressure. However, Venera 13 continued to operate normally for another hour, and, therefore, the object did not belong to it. According to the technical documentation, all external operations - dropping sensor covers and television cameras, drilling the soil, working with the measuring cone - ended half an hour after landing. Nothing else was separated from the device. In subsequent photographs the “scorpion” is missing.
Photo 7. The “scorpion” object appeared in the image approximately 90 minutes after the spacecraft landed. It is missing from subsequent images.
In photo 7, the brightness and contrast have been adjusted, the clarity and sharpness of the original image have been increased. "Scorpio" measures about 17 centimeters in length and has a complex structure reminiscent of terrestrial insects or arachnids. Its shape cannot be the result of a random combination of dark, gray and light points. The image of the “scorpion” consists of 940 points, and in the panorama there are 2.08·105. The probability of the formation of such a structure due to a random combination of points is vanishingly small: less than 10-100. In other words, the possibility of a “scorpion” accidentally appearing is excluded. In addition, it casts a clearly visible shadow, and therefore it is a real object and not an artifact. A simple combination of points cannot cast a shadow.
The late appearance of the “scorpion” in the frame can be explained, for example, by the processes that took place during the landing of the device. The vertical speed of the device was 7.6 m/s, and the lateral speed was approximately equal to the wind speed (0.3-0.5 m/s). The impact on the ground occurred with the reverse acceleration of 50 g of Venus. The device destroyed the soil to a depth of approximately 5 cm and threw it in the direction of lateral movement, covering the surface. To confirm this assumption, the place where the “scorpion” appeared was studied in all panoramas (photo 8) and interesting details were seen.
Photo 8. Sequential images of a section of soil thrown out during landing in the direction of the lateral movement of the vehicle. The approximate minutes of scanning the corresponding area are indicated.
In the first image (7th minute), a shallow groove about 10 cm long is visible on the ejected soil. In the second image (20th minute), the sides of the groove have risen, and its length has increased to approximately 15 cm. In the third (59th minute) a regular “scorpion” structure became visible in the groove. Finally, at the 93rd minute, the “scorpion” completely emerged from the 1–2 cm thick layer of soil that had covered it. At the 119th minute, it disappeared from the frame and is absent from subsequent images (photo 9).
Photo 9. “Scorpio” (1) appeared in the panorama taken from the 87th to the 100th minute. It is absent from the images obtained before the 87th and after the 113th minute. Low-contrast object 2, together with a patchy light environment, is also present only in the panorama of the 87-100th minute. On frames 87-100 and 113-126 minutes on the left, in a group of stones, a new object K with a changing shape appeared. He is not in the frames of the 53-66th and 79-87th minutes. The central part of the image shows the result of image processing and the dimensions of the “scorpion”.
Wind was primarily considered as a possible reason for the movement of the “scorpion”. Since the density of the Venusian atmosphere at the surface is ρ = 65 kg/m³, the dynamic impact of the wind is 8 times higher than on Earth. Wind speed v was measured in many experiments: by the Doppler frequency shift of the transmitted signal; based on the movement of dust and acoustic noise in the microphone on board - and were estimated to range from 0.3 to 0.48 m/s. Even at its maximum value, the wind speed ρv² on the lateral surface area of the “scorpion” creates a pressure of about 0.08 N, which could hardly move the object.
Another likely reason for the disappearance of the "scorpion" could be that it moved. As it moved away from the camera, the resolution of the images deteriorated, and at three to four meters it would have become indistinguishable from stones. At a minimum, it must have moved this distance in 26 minutes - the time the scanner next returned to the same lines in the panorama.
Due to the tilt of the camera axis, image distortions occur (photo 3). But near the camera they are small and do not require correction. Another possible cause of distortion is the movement of the object during scanning. It took 780 s to shoot the entire panorama, and 32 s to capture the image section with the “scorpion”. When an object moves, for example, an apparent lengthening or contraction of its size could occur, but, as will be shown, the fauna of Venus must be very slow.
Analysis of the behavior of objects discovered in panoramas of Venus suggests that at least some of them have signs of living beings. Taking this hypothesis into account, we can try to explain why in the first hour of operation of the descent vehicle, no strange objects were observed except for the “black patch”, and the “scorpion” appeared only an hour and a half after the landing of the vehicle.
A strong impact during landing caused the destruction of the soil and its release towards the lateral movement of the apparatus. After landing, the device made a lot of noise for about half an hour. The squibs shot off the covers of television cameras and scientific instruments, the drilling rig was working, and the rod with the measuring hammer was released. The “inhabitants” of the planet, if they were there, left the dangerous area. But they did not have time to leave the side of the soil ejection and were covered with it. The fact that the “scorpion” took about an hour and a half to get out from under a centimeter-long rubble indicates its low physical capabilities. A huge success of the experiment was the coincidence of the time of scanning the panorama with the appearance of the “scorpion” and its proximity to the television camera, which made it possible to discern both the details of the development of the described events and its appearance, although the clarity of the image leaves much to be desired. The scanning cameras of the Venera-13 and Venera-14 devices were intended to take panoramas of the surrounding areas of their landing sites and obtain general ideas about the surface of the planet. But the experimenters were lucky - they managed to learn much more.
The Venera-14 apparatus also landed in the equatorial zone of the planet, at a distance of about 700 km from Venera-13. At first, the analysis of the panoramas taken by Venera-14 did not reveal any special objects. But a more detailed search yielded interesting results that are now being studied. And we will remember the first panoramas of Venus, obtained in 1975.
Missions "Venera-9" and "Venera-10"
The results of the 1982 missions do not exhaust all available observational data. Almost seven years earlier, the less advanced spacecraft Venera-9 and Venera-10 landed on the surface of Venus (October 22 and 25, 1975). Then, on December 21 and 25, 1978, the landing of Venera 11 and Venera 12 took place. All devices also had optical-mechanical scanning cameras, one on each side of the device. Unfortunately, on the Venera-9 and Venera-10 devices only one chamber opened; the covers of the second ones did not separate, although the cameras worked normally, and on the Venera-11 and Venera-12 devices the covers of all of them did not separate. scanning cameras.
Compared to the cameras of “Venera-13” and “Venera-14”, the resolution in the panoramas of “Venera-9” and “Venera-10” was almost half as low, the angular resolution (unit pixel) was 21 arcminutes, the line scan duration was 3 .5 seconds. The shape of the spectral characteristic roughly corresponded to human vision. The Venera 9 panorama covered 174° in 29.3 minutes of filming with simultaneous transmission. "Venera-9" and "Venera-10" worked for 50 minutes and 44.5 minutes, respectively. The image was relayed to Earth in real time through the orbiter's highly directional antenna. The noise level in the received images was low, but due to the limited resolution the quality of the original panoramas, even after complex processing, left much to be desired.
Photo 10. Panorama transmitted on October 22, 1975 by the Venera-9 apparatus from the surface of the planet.
Photo. 11. Corner left part of the panorama in photo 10, where the slope of a distant hill is visible.
Photo 12. The image of the “strange stone” object (in the oval) becomes more elongated when the geometry of the Venera-9 panorama is corrected. The central field, delimited by slanted lines, corresponds to the right side of photo 10.
At the same time, the images (especially the Venera-9 panorama, which is rich in detail) underwent additional, very labor-intensive processing using modern means, after which they became much clearer (the lower part of photo 10 and photo 11) and are quite comparable with the panoramas of Venera-13 and "Venera-14". As already noted, retouching and additions to images were completely excluded.
The Venera-9 apparatus descended onto the hillside and stood at an angle of almost 10° to the horizon. On the additionally processed left side of the panorama, the distant slope of the next hill is clearly visible (photo 11). Venera 10 landed on a flat surface at a distance of 1600 km from Venera 9.
Analysis of the Venera 9 panorama revealed many interesting details. First, let's return to the image of the “strange stone”. It was so “strange” that this part of the image was even featured on the cover of the publication “The First Panoramas of the Surface of Venus.”
Object "owl"
In 2003-2006, the image quality of the “strange stone” was significantly improved. As objects in panoramas were studied, image processing also improved. Similar to the conventional names proposed above, the “strange stone” received the name “owl” for its shape. Photo 12 shows an improved result based on the corrected image geometry. The detail of the object increased, but still remained insufficient for certain conclusions. The image is based on the far right side of Photo 10. The appearance of a uniformly light sky can be deceiving as there are subtle spots visible in the original image. If we assume that here, as in photo 11, the slope of another hill is visible, then it is poorly distinguishable and should be much further away. The resolution of details in the original image had to be significantly improved.
Photo 13. The complex symmetrical shape and other features of the “strange stone” object (arrow) make it stand out against the background of the rocky surface of the planet at the landing point of Venera 9. The object measures about half a meter. The inset shows the object with the corrected geometry.
The processed fragment of photo 10 is shown in photo 13, where the “owl” is marked with an arrow and surrounded by a white oval. It has a regular shape, strong longitudinal symmetry, and is difficult to interpret as a “strange stone” or a “volcanic bomb with a tail.” The position of the parts of the “lumpy surface” reveals a certain radiality coming from the right side, from the “head”. The “head” itself has a lighter shade and a complex symmetrical structure with large figured, also symmetrical dark spots and, possibly, some kind of protrusion on top. In general, the structure of the massive “head” is difficult to understand. It is possible that some small stones that coincidentally coincide in shades with the “head” appear to be part of it. Correcting the geometry slightly lengthens the object, making it slimmer (photo 13, inset). The straight light “tail” is about 16 cm long, and the entire object together with the “tail” reaches half a meter with a height of at least 25 cm. The shadow under its body, which is slightly raised above the surface, completely follows the contours of all its parts. Thus, the size of the “owl” is quite large, which made it possible to obtain a fairly detailed image even with the limited resolution that the camera had, and, of course, due to the close location of the object. The question is appropriate: if in photo 13 we see not an inhabitant of Venus, then what is it? The apparent complex and highly ordered morphology of the object makes it difficult to find other suggestions.
If in the case of the “scorpion” (“Venera-13”) there was some noise in the panorama, which was eliminated using well-known techniques, then in the panorama of “Venera-9” (photo 10) there is practically no noise and does not affect the image.
Let's return to the original panorama, the details of which are visible quite clearly. The image with corrected geometry and the highest resolution is shown in photo 14. There is another element here that requires the reader's attention.
Damaged "owl"
Photo 14. The highest resolution was obtained when processing the Venera-9 panorama with corrected geometry.
During the first discussions of the results of Venera-13, one of the main questions was: how on Venus could nature manage without water, which is absolutely necessary for the earth’s biosphere? The critical temperature for water (when its vapor and liquid are in equilibrium and have indistinguishable physical properties) on Earth is 374°C, and under the conditions of Venus it is about 320°C. The temperature at the surface of the planet is about 460°C, so the metabolism of organisms on Venus (if they exist) must be built somehow differently, without water. The question of alternative liquids for life in the conditions of Venus has already been considered in a number of scientific works, and chemists are familiar with such media. Perhaps such a liquid is present in photo 14.
Photo 15. Fragment of the panorama - photographic plan. A dark trail stretches from the landing buffer, which, apparently, was left behind by an organism wounded by the device. The trail is formed by some kind of liquid substance of unknown nature (there cannot be liquid water on Venus). The object (about 20 cm in size) managed to crawl 35 cm in no more than six minutes. A photographic plan is convenient because it allows you to compare and measure the actual sizes of objects.
From the place on the torus of the Venera-9 landing buffer, marked with an asterisk in photo 14, a dark trail stretches along the surface of the stone to the left. Then it leaves the stone, expands and ends at a light object, similar to the “owl” discussed above, but half the size, about 20 cm. There are no other similar traces in the image. You can guess the origin of the trail, which begins directly at the landing buffer of the device: the object was partially crushed by the buffer and, crawling away, left a dark trail of liquid substance released from its damaged tissues (photo 15). For terrestrial animals such a trail would be called bloody. (Thus, the first victim of “terrestrial aggression” on Venus dates back to October 22, 1975.) Before the sixth minute of scanning, when the object appeared in the image, it managed to crawl about 35 cm. Knowing the time and distance, it can be established that its speed was not less than 6 cm/min. In photo 15, between the large stones where the damaged object is located, you can discern its shape and other features.
A dark trail indicates that such objects, even damaged ones, are capable of moving at a speed of at least 6 cm/min in case of serious danger. If the “scorpion”, which has already been mentioned, between the 93rd and 119th minutes actually moved to a distance of at least one meter, beyond the camera’s visibility, then its speed was at least 4 cm/min. At the same time, comparing photo 14 with other fragments of images transmitted by Venera-9 in seven minutes, it is clear that the “owl” in photo 13 has not moved. Some objects found in other panoramas (which are not considered here) also remained motionless. It is most likely that such “slowness” is caused by their limited energy reserves (“a scorpion,” for example, spent an hour and a half on a simple operation to save itself) and the slow movements of the Venusian fauna are normal for it. Note that the energy availability of the earth's fauna is very high, which is facilitated by the abundance of flora for nutrition and the oxidizing atmosphere.
In this regard, we should return to the object “owl” in photo 13. The ordered structure of its “lumpy surface” resembles small folded wings, and the “owl” rests on a “paw” similar to a bird’s. The density of the atmosphere of Venus at surface level is 65 kg m³. Any rapid movement in such a dense environment is difficult, but flight would require very small wings, slightly larger than fish fins, and insignificant energy expenditure. However, there is not enough evidence to claim that the object is a bird, and whether the inhabitants of Venus fly is still unknown. But they seem to be attracted to certain meteorological phenomena.
"Snowfall" on Venus
Until now, nothing was known about precipitation on the surface of the planet, except for the assumption of the possible formation and precipitation of aerosols from pyrite, lead sulfide or other compounds high in the Maxwell Mountains. In the latest panoramas of Venera 13, there are many white dots covering a significant part of them. The points were considered noise, loss of information. For example, when the negative signal from one point in the image is lost, a white dot appears in its place. Each such point is a pixel, either lost due to a malfunction of overheated equipment, or lost during a brief loss of radio communication between the descent vehicle and the orbital relay. When processing a panorama in 2011, white dots were replaced with average values of adjacent pixels. The image became clearer, but many small white specks remained. They consisted of several pixels and were, rather, not interference, but something real. Even in raw photographs it is clear that for some reason the dots are almost absent on the black body of the device caught in the frame, and the image itself and the moment the interference appears are in no way connected. Unfortunately, everything turned out to be more complicated. In the grouped images below, noise is also found on a close dark background. Moreover, they are rare, but still found on telemetry inserts, when the broadcast of the panorama was periodically replaced for eight seconds by the transfer of data from other scientific instruments. Therefore, panoramas show both precipitation and interference of electromagnetic origin. The latter is confirmed by the fact that the use of a light “blur” operation dramatically improves the image, eliminating precisely point interference. But the origin of the electrical interference remains unknown.
Photo 16. Chronological sequence of images with meteorological phenomena. The time indicated on the panoramas is counted from the start of scanning the top image. First, the entire initially clean surface became covered with white spots, then, over the next half hour, the area of precipitation decreased by at least half, and the soil under the “melted” mass acquired a dark shade, like earthly soil moistened by melted snow.
Comparing these facts, we can conclude that the noise was partly mistaken for meteorological phenomena - precipitation reminiscent of terrestrial snow, and its phase transitions (melting and evaporation) on the surface of the planet and on the apparatus itself. Photo 16 shows four such successive panoramas. Precipitation apparently occurred in short, intense gusts, after which the area of precipitation decreased by at least half over the next half hour, and the soil under the “melted” mass darkened, like moistened earthly soil. Since the surface temperature at the landing point is established (733 K), and the thermodynamic properties of the atmosphere are known, the main conclusion of the observation is that there are very strict restrictions on the nature of the precipitated solid or liquid substance. Of course, the composition of “snow” at a temperature of 460°C is a big mystery. However, there are probably very few substances that have a critical pT point (when they exist simultaneously in three phases) in a narrow temperature range near 460°C and at a pressure of 9 MPa, and among them are aniline and naphthalene. The described meteorological phenomena occurred after the 60th or 70th minute. At the same time, the “scorpion” appeared and some other interesting phenomena arose that have yet to be described. The conclusion involuntarily suggests itself that Venusian life waits for precipitation, like rain in the desert, or, conversely, avoids it.
The possibility of life in conditions similar to the moderately high temperatures (733 K) and carbon dioxide atmosphere of Venus has been considered more than once in the scientific literature. The authors came to the conclusion that its presence on Venus, for example in microbiological forms, is not excluded. Life was also considered that could evolve under slowly changing conditions from the early stages of the planet's history (with conditions closer to Earth) to modern ones. The temperature range near the surface of the planet (725-755 K depending on the topography), of course, is absolutely unacceptable for terrestrial life forms, but if you think about it, thermodynamically it is no worse than terrestrial conditions. Yes, the media and active chemical agents are unknown to us, but no one was looking for them. Chemical reactions at high temperatures are very active; the source materials on Venus are not much different from those on Earth. There are any number of anaerobic organisms known. Photosynthesis in a number of protozoa is based on a reaction where the electron donor is hydrogen sulfide H2S, rather than water. In many species of autotrophic prokaryotes living underground, chemosynthesis is used instead of photosynthesis, for example 4H2 + CO2 → CH4 + H2O. There are no physical prohibitions on life at high temperatures, except, of course, “earthly chauvinism.” Of course, photosynthesis at high temperatures and in a non-oxidizing environment must apparently rely on completely different, unknown biophysical mechanisms.
But what energy sources could life in principle use in the Venusian atmosphere, where sulfur compounds, rather than water, play the main role in meteorology? The discovered objects are quite large; they are not microorganisms. It is most natural to assume that they, like those on Earth, exist due to vegetation. Although the direct rays of the Sun, due to the thick cloud layer, as a rule, do not reach the surface of the planet, there is enough light there for photosynthesis. On Earth, diffuse illumination of 0.5-7 kilolux is quite enough for photosynthesis even in the depths of dense tropical forests, and on Venus it lies in the range of 0.4-9 kilolux. But if this article gives some idea about the possible fauna of Venus, then it is impossible to judge the flora of the planet based on the available data. It seems that some of its signs can be detected in other panoramas.
Regardless of the specific biophysical mechanism operating on the surface of Venus, at temperatures of incident T1 and outgoing T2 radiation, the thermodynamic efficiency of the process (efficiency ν = (T1 - T2)/T1) should be somewhat lower than on Earth, since T2 = 290 K for Earth and T2 = 735 K for Venus. In addition, due to the strong absorption of the blue-violet part of the spectrum in the atmosphere, the maximum of solar radiation on Venus is shifted to the green-orange region and, according to Wien’s law, corresponds to a lower effective temperature T1 = 4900 K (at Earth T1 = 5770 K). In this regard, Mars has the most favorable conditions for life.
Conclusion about the mysteries of Venus
Due to interest in the possible habitability of a certain class of exoplanets with moderately high surface temperatures, the results of television studies of the surface of Venus, carried out in the Venera 9 missions in 1975 and Venera 13 in 1982, were carefully reconsidered. The planet Venus was considered as a natural high-temperature laboratory. Along with previously published images, panoramas that were not previously included in the main processing were studied. They show objects of appreciable size appearing, changing or disappearing, from a decimeter to half a meter, the random appearance of images of which cannot be explained. Possible evidence was discovered that some of the objects found, which had a complex regular structure, were partially covered with soil thrown out during the landing of the device, and were slowly released from it.
An interesting question is: what energy sources could life use in the high-temperature, non-oxidizing atmosphere of the planet? It is assumed that, like Earth, the source of existence of the hypothetical fauna of Venus should be its hypothetical flora, which carries out a special type of photosynthesis, and some of its samples can be found in other panoramas.
The television cameras of the Venus devices were not intended to photograph possible inhabitants of Venus. A special mission to search for life on Venus should be significantly more complex.
In recent years, the media have written a lot about exploration of the Moon and Mars, bringing more and more unexpected and sometimes downright sensational news. Our planet’s other closest neighbor, Venus, somehow found itself in the shadows. But there are also a lot of interesting and sometimes unexpected things there.
SCIENCE IN SEARCH OF TRUTH
For a long time, Venus remained a kind of “unknown land” for astronomers. This is due to the dense clouds that constantly envelop it. With the help of telescopes, it was never possible to even establish the length of the day on Venus. The first such attempt was made by the famous French astronomer of Italian origin Giovanni Cassini back in 1667.
He stated that a day on the Morning Star is almost no different from those on Earth and is equal to 23 hours 21 minutes.
In the 80s of the 19th century, another great Italian, Giovanni Schiaparelli, established that this planet rotates much more slowly, but he was still far from the truth. Even when interplanetary locators came into play, it was not possible to establish it immediately. So, in May 1961, a group of Soviet scientists came to the conclusion in this way that a day on Venus lasts 11 Earth days.
Only a year later, American radio physicists Goldstein and Carpenter were able to obtain a more or less real value: according to their calculations, Venus makes one revolution around its axis in 240 Earth days. Subsequent measurements showed that their duration reaches 243 Earth years. And this despite the fact that this planet makes a revolution around the Sun in 225 Earth days!
That is, a day there lasts more than a year. At the same time, Venus also rotates around its axis in the direction opposite to that characteristic of the Earth and almost all other planets, that is, the star rises there in the west and sets in the east.
In size, the Morning Star is almost no different from the Earth: the equatorial radius of Venus is 6051.8 km, and that of the Earth is 6378.1; polar radii are 6051.8 and 6356.8 km, respectively. Their average density is also close: 5.24 g/cm³ for Venus and 5.52 g/cm³ for Earth. The acceleration of free fall on our planet is only 10% greater than that of Venus. So, it would seem that it was not in vain that scientists of the past fantasized that somewhere under the cloud cover of the Morning Star lurked life similar to that of earth.
Back in the first half of the 20th century, popular science magazines depicted that the nearby planet was in its development at the stage of a kind of Carboniferous period, that oceans splashed on its surface, and the land was covered with lush exotic vegetation. But how far they actually were from the true state of affairs!
In the 1950s, using radio telescopes, it was determined that the atmosphere of Venus has an enormous density: 50 times greater than that of the Earth's surface. This meant that the atmospheric pressure at the surface of Venus was 90 times greater than that on Earth!
When interplanetary automatic stations reached Venus, many more interesting things were discovered. For example, that the temperature on the surface of a neighboring planet is +470’C. At this temperature, lead, tin and zinc can only remain in a molten state.
Due to the fact that the dense atmosphere is a good heat insulator, there are practically no daily and annual temperature differences on the Morning Star, even under conditions of unusually long days. Of course, hoping to find life in its usual sense in such hellish hell is at least naive.
SECRETS OF THE MORNING STAR
The Venusian landscape is practically no different from the endless, sun-scorched desert. Up to 80% of the planet's surface is made up of flat and hilly plains of volcanic origin. The remaining 20% is occupied by four huge mountain ranges: Aphrodite's Land,
Ishtar Land and the Alpha and Beta regions. When studying some photographs of the surface of Venus taken by interplanetary automatic stations, one gets the impression that only volcanoes rule everywhere on the planet - there are so many of them. Maybe Venus is really still very, very young geologically and has not even reached the age of the Carboniferous period? In addition to volcanic ones, about a thousand meteorite craters have been discovered on the planet: on average, 2 craters per 1 million km². Many of them reach a diameter of 150-270 km.
The superheated atmosphere of Venus, from the point of view of earthlings, is a real hellish mixture: 97% of its composition is carbon dioxide, 2% nitrogen, 0.01% or even less oxygen and 0.05% water vapor. At an altitude of 48-49 kilometers, a 20-kilometer layer of clouds consisting of sulfuric acid vapor begins. At the same time, the atmosphere rotates around the planet 60 times faster than it itself.
Scientists cannot yet answer why this happens. At the same time, the wind speed at high altitudes reaches 60 m/s, at the surface - 3-7 m/s. The sun's rays in the Venusian atmosphere are strongly refracted, as a result of which refraction occurs and it becomes possible, especially at night, to see what is beyond the horizon. The color of the sky is yellow-green, the clouds are orange.
The Venus Express probe discovered a mysterious phenomenon as it approached the planet. In photographs taken from space, it is clearly visible that in the atmosphere of the planet above its South Pole there is a giant black funnel. One gets the impression that the atmospheric clouds are twisting into a giant spiral, which goes into the planet through a huge hole.
That is, Venus in this case looks like a hollow ball. Of course, scientists do not seriously think about the existence of an entrance leading to the Venusian underground kingdom, but the mysterious spiral-shaped vortices over the South Pole of the planet are still waiting to be explained.
Venus demonstrated another strange phenomenon to scientists in 2008. It was then that a strange luminous fog was discovered in its atmosphere, which, after existing for only a few days, disappeared as unexpectedly as it appeared. Astronomers believe that this phenomenon is most likely absent on other planets, including Earth.
"BIRD", "DISC", "SCORPIO"
However, the strangest thing is that on the planet, on the surface of which lead is melting, something very similar to the manifestations of life was nevertheless recorded. Already in one of the panoramic images taken by the Soviet Venera-9 apparatus in 1975, the attention of several groups of experimenters was attracted by a symmetrical object of complex shape, about 40 cm in size, resembling a sitting bird with an elongated tail.
In the collection “Rediscovered Planets”, published three years later, edited by Academician M.V. Keldysh, this subject was described as follows:
“The details of the object are symmetrical about the longitudinal axis. Lack of clarity hides its contours, but... with some imagination you can see a fantastic inhabitant of Venus... Its entire surface is covered with strange growths, and in their position you can see some kind of symmetry.
To the left of the object protrudes a long straight white process, under which a deep shadow is visible, repeating its shape. The white appendage is very similar to a straight tail. On the opposite side, the object ends in a large white rounded protrusion, similar to a head. The entire object rests on a short thick “paw”. The resolution of the image is not enough to clearly distinguish all the details of the mysterious object...
Did Venera 9 really land next to a living inhabitant of the planet? This is very hard to believe. Moreover, in the eight minutes that passed before the camera lens returned to the subject, it did not change its position at all. This is strange for a living creature... Most likely, we are seeing a stone of an unusual shape, similar to a volcanic bomb... With a tail.”
The same book said that heat-resistant organic compounds have been synthesized on Earth that can withstand temperatures up to 1000°C or more, that is, in terms of the existence of life, Venus is not so hopeless.
On March 1, 1982, the Venera-13 apparatus transmitted very interesting images. The lens of his camera caught a strange “disc” changing its shape and a certain “broom”. Moreover, the measuring hammer of the interplanetary apparatus entwined a strange object called a “black patch”, which soon disappeared.
However, the “flap” was most likely torn out of the ground during landing and was soon blown away by the wind, but the “scorpion” that appeared in the 93rd minute after the landing of the apparatus, similar in shape to terrestrial insects and crustaceans, is already in the next picture where -disappeared.
A careful analysis of sequentially taken photographs led to paradoxical conclusions: when the Scorpion was landing, it was covered with uprooted soil, but gradually dug a groove in it, climbed out and went somewhere.
So is this hell with rains of sulfuric acid really teeming with life?..
Victor BUMAGIN
Venus is one of the most mysterious planets in our solar system. Astrophysical research in recent decades has enriched our understanding of nature with many interesting facts. In 1995, the first exoplanet was found - a planet that orbits one of the stars in our Galaxy.
Today, more than seven hundred such exoplanets are known. Almost all of them orbit in very low orbits, but if the luminosity of the star is low, the temperature on the planet can range from 650-900 K (377-627 ° C). Such conditions are absolutely unacceptable for the only protein form of life known to us. But is it really the only one in the Universe, and is the denial of its other possible types “earthly chauvinism”?
It is unlikely that it will be possible to explore even the closest exoplanets using automatic spacecraft in the current century. It is quite possible, however, that the answer can be found very close by, on our closest neighbor in the solar system - Venus. The temperature of the planet's surface (735 K, or 462 ° C), the enormous pressure (87-90 atm) of its gas shell with a density of 65 kg/m?, consisting mainly of carbon dioxide (96.5%), nitrogen (3.5% ) and traces of oxygen (less than 2·10-5%), are close to the physical conditions on many exoplanets of a special class. Recently, television images (panoramas) of the surface of Venus, obtained thirty years ago or more, have been re-examined and processed. They revealed several objects ranging in size from a decimeter to half a meter, which changed shape, position in the frame, appeared in some images and disappeared in others. And in a number of panoramas, precipitation was clearly observed that fell and melted on the surface of the planet.
In January, the journal “Astronomical Bulletin - Research of the Solar System” published the article “Venus as a natural laboratory for the search for life in conditions of high temperatures: about the events on the planet on March 1, 1982.” She did not leave readers indifferent, and opinions were divided - from extreme interest to angry disapproval, coming mainly from overseas. Both the article published then and this article do not claim that a hitherto unknown extraterrestrial life form was found on Venus, but only talk about phenomena that may be its signs. But, as one of the two main authors of the television experiment on the Venus spacecraft, Yu.M., successfully formulated the topic. Hektin, “we do not like the interpretation of the results as signs of life on the planet. However, we cannot find any other explanation for what we see in panoramas of the surface of Venus.”
It is probably appropriate to recall the aphorism that new ideas usually go through three stages: 1. How stupid! 2. There is something in this... 3. Well, who doesn’t know that!
The Venus devices, their video cameras and the first greetings from Venus
The first panoramas of the surface of Venus were transmitted to Earth by the Venera-9 and Venera-10 spacecraft back in 1975. Images were obtained using two optical-mechanical cameras with photomultipliers installed on each device (CCD matrices then existed only as an idea).
Photo 1. The surface of Venus at the landing site of the Venera 9 spacecraft (1975). Physical conditions on Venus: atmosphere CO2 96.5%, N2 3.5%, O2 less than 2·10-5; temperature - 735 K (462°C), pressure 92 MPa (approximately 90 atm). Daylight illumination from 400 lux to 11 klux. The meteorology of Venus is determined by sulfur compounds (SO2, SO3, H2SO4).
The camera pupils were located at a height of 90 cm from the surface, on both sides of the apparatus. The swinging mirror of each camera gradually rotated and created a panorama of 177 ° in width, a strip from horizon to horizon (3.3 km on flat ground), and the upper border of the image was two meters from the device. The resolution of the cameras made it possible to clearly see millimeter-scale surface details close up and objects about 10 meters in size near the horizon. The cameras were located inside the device and filmed the surrounding landscape through a sealed quartz window. The device gradually warmed up, but its designers firmly promised half an hour of operation. A processed fragment of the Venera-9 panorama is presented in photo 1. This is how a person on an expedition to Venus would see the planet.
In 1982, the Venera-13 and Venera-14 devices were equipped with more advanced cameras with light filters. The images were twice as sharp and consisted of 1000 vertical lines of 211 pixels, each 11 arcminutes in size. The video signal, as before, was transmitted to the orbital part of the device, the artificial satellite of Venus, which relayed the data to Earth in real time. During operation, the cameras transmitted 33 panoramas or fragments thereof, which allows us to trace the development of some interesting phenomena on the planet.
It is impossible to convey the scale of the technical difficulties that camera developers had to overcome. Suffice it to say that in the 37 years since then, the experiment has never been repeated. The development team was led by Doctor of Technical Sciences A.S. Selivanov, who managed to assemble a group of talented scientists and engineers. Let us mention here only the current Chief Designer of space instruments of JSC Space Systems, Candidate of Technical Sciences Yu.M. Gektin, his colleagues - candidate of physical and mathematical sciences A.S. Panfilova, M.K. Naraev, V.P. Suitcase. The first images from the surface of the Moon and from the orbit of Mars were also transmitted by the instruments they created.
In the very first panorama (“Venera-9”, 1975), the attention of several groups of experimenters was attracted by a symmetrical object of complex structure, about 40 centimeters in size, resembling a sitting bird with an elongated tail. Geologists cautiously called it “a strange rock with a rod-like protrusion and a lumpy surface.” “The Stone” was discussed in the final collection of articles “First panoramas of the surface of Venus” (editor M.V. Keldysh) and in a weighty volume of the international publication “VENUS”. I became interested in it on October 22, 1975, immediately as soon as the tape with the panorama crawled out of the bulky phototelegraph apparatus at the Evpatoria Center for Deep Space Communications.
Unfortunately, in the future, all my attempts to interest my colleagues at the Space Research Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences and the administration of the institute in the strange object were in vain. The idea of the impossibility of life existing at high temperatures turned out to be an insurmountable barrier to any discussion. Still, a year before the publication of M. V. Keldysh’s collection, in 1978, the book “Rediscovered Planets” was published, which contained an image of a “strange stone”. The comment on the photo was: “The details of the object are symmetrical about the longitudinal axis. Lack of clarity hides its contours, but... with some imagination you can see a fantastic inhabitant of Venus. On the right side of the picture... you can see an unusually shaped object about 30 cm in size. Its entire surface is covered with strange growths, and in their position you can see some kind of symmetry. To the left of the object protrudes a long straight white process, under which a deep shadow is visible, repeating its shape. The white appendage is very similar to a straight tail. On the opposite side, the object ends in a large white rounded protrusion, similar to a head. The entire object rests on a short thick “paw”. The resolution of the image is not enough to clearly distinguish all the details of the mysterious object... Did Venera 9 really land next to a living inhabitant of the planet? This is very hard to believe. Moreover, in the eight minutes that passed before the camera lens returned to the object, it did not change its position at all. This is strange for a living creature (unless it was damaged by the edge of the apparatus from which it is separated by centimeters). Most likely, we are seeing a stone of an unusual shape, similar to a volcanic bomb... With a tail.”
The sarcasm of the final phrase - “with a tail” - showed that opponents did not convince the author of the physical impossibility of life on Venus. The same publication says: “Let us imagine, however, that in some of the space experiments a living being was nevertheless found on the surface of Venus... The history of science shows that as soon as a new experimental fact appears, theorists, as a rule, they quickly find an explanation for him. One can even predict what this explanation would be. Very heat-resistant organic compounds have been synthesized that use the energy of ?-electronic bonds (one of the types of covalent bonds, the “sharing” of valence electrons of two atoms of a molecule. - Ed.). Such polymers can withstand temperatures up to 1000°C or more. Amazingly, some terrestrial bacteria use β-electron bonds in their metabolism, but not to increase heat resistance, but to bind atmospheric nitrogen (which inevitably requires enormous bond energy, reaching 10 eV or more). As you can see, nature created “blanks” for models of Venusian living cells even on Earth.”
The author returned to this topic in the books “Planeten” and “Parade of the Planets”. But in his strictly scientific monograph “Planet Venus” the hypothesis of life on the planet is not mentioned, since the question of the energy sources necessary for life in a non-oxidizing atmosphere remained (and continues to remain) unclear.
New missions. 1982
Photo 2. The Venera-13 apparatus during laboratory tests in 1981. In the center you can see the window of the television camera, covered with a lid.
Let’s leave the “strange stone” for a while. The next successful flights to the planet with the transmission of images from its surface were the Venera 13 and Venera 14 missions in 1982. The team of the Research and Production Association named after. S.A. Lavochkin created amazing devices, which were then called AMS.
With each new mission to Venus, they became more and more advanced, capable of withstanding enormous pressures and temperatures. The Venera-13 apparatus (photo 2), equipped with two television cameras and other instruments, descended in the equatorial zone of the planet.
Thanks to effective thermal protection, the temperature inside the devices rose quite slowly, their systems managed to transmit a lot of scientific data, high-definition panoramic images, including color ones, and with a low level of various interference. The transmission of each panorama took 13 minutes. The Venera 13 lander operated for a record long time on March 1, 1982. It would have continued to transmit more, but at the 127th minute, it is unclear who and why ordered it to stop receiving data from it. A command was sent from Earth to turn off the receiver on the orbiter, although the lander continued to send signals... Was it a concern for the orbiter so that its batteries would not run out, or something else, but didn’t priority remain with the lander?
Based on all the information transmitted, including that which until recently was considered to be corrupted by noise, the duration of Venera-13’s successful operation on the surface exceeded two hours. The images published in print were created by combining color-separated and black-and-white panoramas (photo 3). At a low level of interference, three images were sufficient for this.
Photo 3. Panorama of the surface of Venus at the landing site of the Venera-13 spacecraft. In the center is the landing buffer of the apparatus with the teeth of a turbulator, ensuring a smooth landing, above is the discarded white semi-cylindrical cover of the television camera window. Its diameter is 20 cm, height 16 cm. The distance between the teeth is 5 cm.
The excess information made it possible to restore the picture where, for a short time, the apparatus switched from surface images to transmitting the results of other scientific measurements. The published panoramas traveled around the world, were reprinted many times, then interest in them began to gradually fade away; even experts have come to the conclusion that the job has already been done...
What we managed to see on the surface of Venus
The new image analysis turned out to be very labor-intensive. People often ask why they waited more than thirty years. No, we didn't wait. Old data was turned to again and again, as processing tools improved and, let's say, observation and understanding of extraterrestrial objects improved. Promising results were obtained already in 2003-2006, and the most significant discoveries were made last year and the year before, and the work has not yet been completed. For the studies, we used sequences of primary images obtained over a fairly long period of operation of the device. On them one could try to detect some differences, understand what caused them (for example, wind), detect objects that differ in appearance from natural surface details, and note phenomena that escaped attention then, more than thirty years ago. During processing, we used the simplest and “linear” methods - adjusting brightness, contrast, blurring or sharpening. Any other means - retouching, adjustments or the use of any version of Photoshop - were completely excluded.
The most interesting are the images transmitted by the Venera 13 spacecraft on March 1, 1982. A new analysis of images of the surface of Venus revealed several objects that had the features noted above. For convenience, they were given conventional names, which, of course, do not reflect their real essence.
Photo 4. The lower part of a large “disk” object, 0.34 m in diameter, is visible on the right at the top border of the image.
A strange “disk” that changes its shape. The “disc” has a regular shape, apparently round, about 30 cm in diameter and resembles a large shell. In the panorama fragment in photo 4, only its lower half is visible, and the upper half is cut off by the frame border.
The position of the “disk” in subsequent images changes slightly due to a slight shift of the scanning camera when the device warms up. In photo 4, an elongated structure resembling a panicle is adjacent to the “disc”. Photo 5 shows sequential images of the “disk” (arrow a) and the surface near it, and at the bottom of the frames the approximate moment of the scanner field passing over the “disk” is indicated.
In the first two frames (32nd and 72nd minutes), the appearance of the “disc” and “broom” almost did not change, but at the end of the 72nd minute a short arc appeared in its lower part. On the third frame (86th minute) the arc became several times longer, and the “disk” began to divide into parts.
At the 93rd minute (frame 4) the “disk” disappeared, and in its place a symmetrical light object of approximately the same size appeared, formed by numerous V-shaped folds - “chevrons”, oriented approximately along the “panicle”. Numerous large arcs, similar to the arc in the third frame, separated from the lower part of the chevrons. They covered the entire surface adjacent to the telephotometer cover (the white half-cylinder on the surface). Unlike the “broom”, a shadow is visible under the “chevrons”, which indicates their volume.
Photo 5. Changes in the position and shape of the “disk” (arrow a) and “chevron” (arrow b) objects. The approximate moment when the scanner passes the image of the “disk” is indicated at the bottom of the frames.
After 26 minutes, on the last frame (119th minute), the “disc” and “panicle” were completely restored and are clearly visible. The "chevrons" and arcs disappeared just as they appeared, possibly moving outside the image border. Thus, five frames of photo 5 demonstrate the full cycle of changes in the shape of the “disk” and the probable connection of the “chevrons” with both it and the arcs.
“Black flap” on the soil mechanical property meter. On the Venera-13 apparatus, among other instruments, there was a device for measuring soil strength in the form of a folding truss 60 cm long. After the apparatus landed, the latch holding the truss was released, and under the action of a spring the truss was lowered to the ground. The measuring cone (stamp) at its end, the kinetic energy of which was known, went deeper into the soil. The mechanical strength of the soil was assessed by the depth of its immersion.
Photo 6. An unknown “black flap” object appeared in the first 13 minutes after landing, wrapped around a conical measuring hammer, which was partially buried in the ground. The details of the mechanism are visible through the black object. Subsequent images (taken between 27 and 50 minutes after landing) show a clean hammer surface with no black flap.
One of the mission's objectives was to measure small components of the atmosphere and soil. Therefore, any separation from the apparatus of any particles, films, products of destruction or burning during descent into the atmosphere and landing was absolutely excluded; During ground tests, special attention was paid to these requirements. However, in the first image, obtained in the interval 0-13 minutes after landing, it is clearly visible that around the measuring cone, along its entire height, an unknown thin object stretched upward was wrapped - a “black flap” measuring about six centimeters in height (photo 6) . In subsequent panoramas taken after 27 and 36 minutes, this “black patch” is missing. It cannot be a defect in the image: clearer images show that some parts of the truss are projected onto the “flap”, while others are partially visible through it. A second object of this type was discovered on the other side of the device, under the dropped camera cover. It seems that their appearance is somehow related to the destruction of the soil by the measuring cone or landing apparatus. This assumption is indirectly confirmed by the observation of another similar object that appeared in the field of view of the cameras later.
The star of the screen is Scorpio. This most interesting object appeared approximately at the 90th minute, along with a semi-ring adjacent to it on the right (photo 7). What first attracted attention to him was, of course, his strange appearance. The assumption immediately arose that this was some kind of part that had separated from the apparatus that had begun to collapse. But then the device would quickly fail due to catastrophic overheating of its devices in the sealed compartment, into which the hot atmosphere would immediately penetrate under the influence of gigantic pressure. However, Venera 13 continued to operate normally for another hour, and, therefore, the object did not belong to it. According to the technical documentation, all external operations - dropping sensor covers and television cameras, drilling the soil, working with the measuring cone - ended half an hour after landing. Nothing else was separated from the device. In subsequent photographs the “scorpion” is missing.
Photo 7. The “scorpion” object appeared in the image approximately 90 minutes after the spacecraft landed. It is missing from subsequent images.
In photo 7, the brightness and contrast have been adjusted, the clarity and sharpness of the original image have been increased. "Scorpio" measures about 17 centimeters in length and has a complex structure reminiscent of terrestrial insects or arachnids. Its shape cannot be the result of a random combination of dark, gray and light points. The image of the “scorpion” consists of 940 points, and in the panorama there are 2.08·105. The probability of the formation of such a structure due to a random combination of points is vanishingly small: less than 10-100. In other words, the possibility of a “scorpion” accidentally appearing is excluded. In addition, it casts a clearly visible shadow, and therefore it is a real object and not an artifact. A simple combination of points cannot cast a shadow.
The late appearance of the “scorpion” in the frame can be explained, for example, by the processes that took place during the landing of the device. The vertical speed of the device was 7.6 m/s, and the lateral speed was approximately equal to the wind speed (0.3-0.5 m/s). The impact on the ground occurred with the reverse acceleration of 50 g of Venus. The device destroyed the soil to a depth of approximately 5 cm and threw it in the direction of lateral movement, covering the surface. To confirm this assumption, the place where the “scorpion” appeared was studied in all panoramas (photo 8) and interesting details were seen.
Photo 8. Sequential images of a section of soil thrown out during landing in the direction of the lateral movement of the vehicle. The approximate minutes of scanning the corresponding area are indicated.
In the first image (7th minute), a shallow groove about 10 cm long is visible on the ejected soil. In the second image (20th minute), the sides of the groove have risen, and its length has increased to approximately 15 cm. In the third (59th minute) a regular “scorpion” structure became visible in the groove. Finally, at the 93rd minute, the “scorpion” completely emerged from the 1–2 cm thick layer of soil that had covered it. At the 119th minute, it disappeared from the frame and is absent from subsequent images (photo 9).
Photo 9. “Scorpio” (1) appeared in the panorama taken from the 87th to the 100th minute. It is absent from the images obtained before the 87th and after the 113th minute. Low-contrast object 2, together with a patchy light environment, is also present only in the panorama of the 87-100th minute. On frames 87-100 and 113-126 minutes on the left, in a group of stones, a new object K with a changing shape appeared. He is not in the frames of the 53-66th and 79-87th minutes. The central part of the image shows the result of image processing and the dimensions of the “scorpion”.
Wind was primarily considered as a possible reason for the movement of the “scorpion”. Since the density of the Venusian atmosphere at the surface? = 65 kg/m?, the dynamic impact of wind is 8 times higher than on Earth. Wind speed v was measured in many experiments: by the Doppler frequency shift of the transmitted signal; based on the movement of dust and acoustic noise in the microphone on board - and were estimated to range from 0.3 to 0.48 m/s. Even at its maximum value, the wind speed?v? creates a pressure of about 0.08 N on the lateral surface area of the “scorpion”, which could hardly move the object.
Another likely reason for the disappearance of the "scorpion" could be that it moved. As it moved away from the camera, the resolution of the images deteriorated, and at three to four meters it would have become indistinguishable from stones. At a minimum, it must have moved this distance in 26 minutes - the time the scanner next returned to the same lines in the panorama.
Due to the tilt of the camera axis, image distortions occur (photo 3). But near the camera they are small and do not require correction. Another possible cause of distortion is the movement of the object during scanning. It took 780 s to shoot the entire panorama, and 32 s to capture the image section with the “scorpion”. When an object moves, for example, an apparent lengthening or contraction of its size could occur, but, as will be shown, the fauna of Venus must be very slow.
Analysis of the behavior of objects discovered in panoramas of Venus suggests that at least some of them have signs of living beings. Taking this hypothesis into account, we can try to explain why in the first hour of operation of the descent vehicle, no strange objects were observed except for the “black patch”, and the “scorpion” appeared only an hour and a half after the landing of the vehicle.
A strong impact during landing caused the destruction of the soil and its release towards the lateral movement of the apparatus. After landing, the device made a lot of noise for about half an hour. The squibs shot off the covers of television cameras and scientific instruments, the drilling rig was working, and the rod with the measuring hammer was released. The “inhabitants” of the planet, if they were there, left the dangerous area. But they did not have time to leave the side of the soil ejection and were covered with it. The fact that the “scorpion” took about an hour and a half to get out from under a centimeter-long rubble indicates its low physical capabilities. A huge success of the experiment was the coincidence of the time of scanning the panorama with the appearance of the “scorpion” and its proximity to the television camera, which made it possible to discern both the details of the development of the described events and its appearance, although the clarity of the image leaves much to be desired. The scanning cameras of the Venera-13 and Venera-14 devices were intended to take panoramas of the surrounding areas of their landing sites and obtain general ideas about the surface of the planet. But the experimenters were lucky - they managed to learn much more.
The Venera-14 apparatus also landed in the equatorial zone of the planet, at a distance of about 700 km from Venera-13. At first, the analysis of the panoramas taken by Venera-14 did not reveal any special objects. But a more detailed search yielded interesting results that are now being studied. And we will remember the first panoramas of Venus, obtained in 1975.
Missions "Venera-9" and "Venera-10"
The results of the 1982 missions do not exhaust all available observational data. Almost seven years earlier, the less advanced spacecraft Venera-9 and Venera-10 landed on the surface of Venus (October 22 and 25, 1975). Then, on December 21 and 25, 1978, the landing of Venera 11 and Venera 12 took place. All devices also had optical-mechanical scanning cameras, one on each side of the device. Unfortunately, on the Venera-9 and Venera-10 devices only one chamber opened; the covers of the second ones did not separate, although the cameras worked normally, and on the Venera-11 and Venera-12 devices the covers of all of them did not separate. scanning cameras.
Compared to the cameras of “Venera-13” and “Venera-14”, the resolution in the panoramas of “Venera-9” and “Venera-10” was almost half as low, the angular resolution (unit pixel) was 21 arcminutes, the line scan duration was 3 .5 seconds. The shape of the spectral characteristic roughly corresponded to human vision. The Venera 9 panorama covered 174° in 29.3 minutes of filming with simultaneous transmission. "Venera-9" and "Venera-10" worked for 50 minutes and 44.5 minutes, respectively. The image was relayed to Earth in real time through the orbiter's highly directional antenna. The noise level in the received images was low, but due to the limited resolution the quality of the original panoramas, even after complex processing, left much to be desired.
Photo 10. Panorama transmitted on October 22, 1975 by the Venera-9 apparatus from the surface of the planet.
Photo. 11. Corner left part of the panorama in photo 10, where the slope of a distant hill is visible.
Photo 12. The image of the “strange stone” object (in the oval) becomes more elongated when the geometry of the Venera-9 panorama is corrected. The central field, delimited by slanted lines, corresponds to the right side of photo 10.
At the same time, the images (especially the Venera-9 panorama, which is rich in detail) underwent additional, very labor-intensive processing using modern means, after which they became much clearer (the lower part of photo 10 and photo 11) and are quite comparable with the panoramas of Venera-13 and "Venera-14". As already noted, retouching and additions to images were completely excluded.
The Venera-9 apparatus descended onto the hillside and stood at an angle of almost 10° to the horizon. On the additionally processed left side of the panorama, the distant slope of the next hill is clearly visible (photo 11). Venera 10 landed on a flat surface at a distance of 1600 km from Venera 9.
Analysis of the Venera 9 panorama revealed many interesting details. First, let's return to the image of the “strange stone”. It was so “strange” that this part of the image was even featured on the cover of the publication “The First Panoramas of the Surface of Venus.”
Object "owl"
In 2003-2006, the image quality of the “strange stone” was significantly improved. As objects in panoramas were studied, image processing also improved. Similar to the conventional names proposed above, the “strange stone” received the name “owl” for its shape. Photo 12 shows an improved result based on the corrected image geometry. The detail of the object increased, but still remained insufficient for certain conclusions. The image is based on the far right side of Photo 10. The appearance of a uniformly light sky can be deceiving as there are subtle spots visible in the original image. If we assume that here, as in photo 11, the slope of another hill is visible, then it is poorly distinguishable and should be much further away. The resolution of details in the original image had to be significantly improved.
Photo 13. The complex symmetrical shape and other features of the “strange stone” object (arrow) make it stand out against the background of the rocky surface of the planet at the landing point of Venera 9. The object measures about half a meter. The inset shows the object with the corrected geometry.
The processed fragment of photo 10 is shown in photo 13, where the “owl” is marked with an arrow and surrounded by a white oval. It has a regular shape, strong longitudinal symmetry, and is difficult to interpret as a “strange stone” or a “volcanic bomb with a tail.” The position of the parts of the “lumpy surface” reveals a certain radiality coming from the right side, from the “head”. The “head” itself has a lighter shade and a complex symmetrical structure with large figured, also symmetrical dark spots and, possibly, some kind of protrusion on top. In general, the structure of the massive “head” is difficult to understand. It is possible that some small stones that coincidentally coincide in shades with the “head” appear to be part of it. Correcting the geometry slightly lengthens the object, making it slimmer (photo 13, inset). The straight light “tail” is about 16 cm long, and the entire object together with the “tail” reaches half a meter with a height of at least 25 cm. The shadow under its body, which is slightly raised above the surface, completely follows the contours of all its parts. Thus, the size of the “owl” is quite large, which made it possible to obtain a fairly detailed image even with the limited resolution that the camera had, and, of course, due to the close location of the object. The question is appropriate: if in photo 13 we see not an inhabitant of Venus, then what is it? The apparent complex and highly ordered morphology of the object makes it difficult to find other suggestions.
If in the case of the “scorpion” (“Venera-13”) there was some noise in the panorama, which was eliminated using well-known techniques, then in the panorama of “Venera-9” (photo 10) there is practically no noise and does not affect the image.
Let's return to the original panorama, the details of which are visible quite clearly. The image with corrected geometry and the highest resolution is shown in photo 14. There is another element here that requires the reader's attention.
Damaged "owl"
Photo 14. The highest resolution was obtained when processing the Venera-9 panorama with corrected geometry.
During the first discussions of the results of Venera-13, one of the main questions was: how on Venus could nature manage without water, which is absolutely necessary for the earth’s biosphere? The critical temperature for water (when its vapor and liquid are in equilibrium and have indistinguishable physical properties) on Earth is 374°C, and under the conditions of Venus it is about 320°C. The temperature at the surface of the planet is about 460°C, so the metabolism of organisms on Venus (if they exist) must be built somehow differently, without water. The question of alternative liquids for life in the conditions of Venus has already been considered in a number of scientific works, and chemists are familiar with such media. Perhaps such a liquid is present in photo 14.
Photo 15. Fragment of the panorama - photographic plan. A dark trail stretches from the landing buffer, which, apparently, was left behind by an organism wounded by the device. The trail is formed by some kind of liquid substance of unknown nature (there cannot be liquid water on Venus). The object (about 20 cm in size) managed to crawl 35 cm in no more than six minutes. A photographic plan is convenient because it allows you to compare and measure the actual sizes of objects.
From the place on the torus of the Venera-9 landing buffer, marked with an asterisk in photo 14, a dark trail stretches along the surface of the stone to the left. Then it leaves the stone, expands and ends at a light object, similar to the “owl” discussed above, but half the size, about 20 cm. There are no other similar traces in the image. You can guess the origin of the trail, which begins directly at the landing buffer of the device: the object was partially crushed by the buffer and, crawling away, left a dark trail of liquid substance released from its damaged tissues (photo 15). For terrestrial animals such a trail would be called bloody. (Thus, the first victim of “terrestrial aggression” on Venus dates back to October 22, 1975.) Before the sixth minute of scanning, when the object appeared in the image, it managed to crawl about 35 cm. Knowing the time and distance, it can be established that its speed was not less than 6 cm/min. In photo 15, between the large stones where the damaged object is located, you can discern its shape and other features.
A dark trail indicates that such objects, even damaged ones, are capable of moving at a speed of at least 6 cm/min in case of serious danger. If the “scorpion”, which has already been mentioned, between the 93rd and 119th minutes actually moved to a distance of at least one meter, beyond the camera’s visibility, then its speed was at least 4 cm/min. At the same time, comparing photo 14 with other fragments of images transmitted by Venera-9 in seven minutes, it is clear that the “owl” in photo 13 has not moved. Some objects found in other panoramas (which are not considered here) also remained motionless. It is most likely that such “slowness” is caused by their limited energy reserves (“a scorpion,” for example, spent an hour and a half on a simple operation to save itself) and the slow movements of the Venusian fauna are normal for it. Note that the energy availability of the earth's fauna is very high, which is facilitated by the abundance of flora for nutrition and the oxidizing atmosphere.
In this regard, we should return to the object “owl” in photo 13. The ordered structure of its “lumpy surface” resembles small folded wings, and the “owl” rests on a “paw” similar to a bird’s. The density of the atmosphere of Venus at surface level is 65 kg m?. Any rapid movement in such a dense environment is difficult, but flight would require very small wings, slightly larger than fish fins, and insignificant energy expenditure. However, there is not enough evidence to claim that the object is a bird, and whether the inhabitants of Venus fly is still unknown. But they seem to be attracted to certain meteorological phenomena.
"Snowfall" on Venus
Until now, nothing was known about precipitation on the surface of the planet, except for the assumption of the possible formation and precipitation of aerosols from pyrite, lead sulfide or other compounds high in the Maxwell Mountains. In the latest panoramas of Venera 13, there are many white dots covering a significant part of them. The points were considered noise, loss of information. For example, when the negative signal from one point in the image is lost, a white dot appears in its place. Each such point is a pixel, either lost due to a malfunction of overheated equipment, or lost during a brief loss of radio communication between the descent vehicle and the orbital relay. When processing a panorama in 2011, white dots were replaced with average values of adjacent pixels. The image became clearer, but many small white specks remained. They consisted of several pixels and were, rather, not interference, but something real. Even in raw photographs it is clear that for some reason the dots are almost absent on the black body of the device caught in the frame, and the image itself and the moment the interference appears are in no way connected. Unfortunately, everything turned out to be more complicated. In the grouped images below, noise is also found on a close dark background. Moreover, they are rare, but still found on telemetry inserts, when the broadcast of the panorama was periodically replaced for eight seconds by the transfer of data from other scientific instruments. Therefore, panoramas show both precipitation and interference of electromagnetic origin. The latter is confirmed by the fact that the use of a light “blur” operation dramatically improves the image, eliminating precisely point interference. But the origin of the electrical interference remains unknown.
Photo 16. Chronological sequence of images with meteorological phenomena. The time indicated on the panoramas is counted from the start of scanning the top image. First, the entire initially clean surface became covered with white spots, then, over the next half hour, the area of precipitation decreased by at least half, and the soil under the “melted” mass acquired a dark shade, like earthly soil moistened by melted snow.
Comparing these facts, we can conclude that the noise was partly mistaken for meteorological phenomena - precipitation reminiscent of terrestrial snow, and its phase transitions (melting and evaporation) on the surface of the planet and on the apparatus itself. Photo 16 shows four such successive panoramas. Precipitation apparently occurred in short, intense gusts, after which the area of precipitation decreased by at least half over the next half hour, and the soil under the “melted” mass darkened, like moistened earthly soil. Since the surface temperature at the landing point is established (733 K), and the thermodynamic properties of the atmosphere are known, the main conclusion of the observation is that there are very strict restrictions on the nature of the precipitated solid or liquid substance. Of course, the composition of “snow” at a temperature of 460°C is a big mystery. However, there are probably very few substances that have a critical pT point (when they exist simultaneously in three phases) in a narrow temperature range near 460°C and at a pressure of 9 MPa, and among them are aniline and naphthalene. The described meteorological phenomena occurred after the 60th or 70th minute. At the same time, the “scorpion” appeared and some other interesting phenomena arose that have yet to be described. The conclusion involuntarily suggests itself that Venusian life waits for precipitation, like rain in the desert, or, conversely, avoids it.
Sources of energy of the Venusian fauna
The possibility of life in conditions similar to the moderately high temperatures (733 K) and carbon dioxide atmosphere of Venus has been considered more than once in the scientific literature. The authors came to the conclusion that its presence on Venus, for example in microbiological forms, is not excluded. Life was also considered that could evolve under slowly changing conditions from the early stages of the planet's history (with conditions closer to Earth) to modern ones. The temperature range near the surface of the planet (725-755 K depending on the topography), of course, is absolutely unacceptable for terrestrial life forms, but if you think about it, thermodynamically it is no worse than terrestrial conditions. Yes, the media and active chemical agents are unknown to us, but no one was looking for them. Chemical reactions at high temperatures are very active; the source materials on Venus are not much different from those on Earth. There are any number of anaerobic organisms known. Photosynthesis in a number of protozoa is based on a reaction where the electron donor is hydrogen sulfide H2S, rather than water. In many species of autotrophic prokaryotes living underground, chemosynthesis is used instead of photosynthesis, for example 4H2 + CO2 -> CH4 + H2O. There are no physical prohibitions on life at high temperatures, except, of course, “earthly chauvinism.” Of course, photosynthesis at high temperatures and in a non-oxidizing environment must apparently rely on completely different, unknown biophysical mechanisms.
But what energy sources could life in principle use in the Venusian atmosphere, where sulfur compounds, rather than water, play the main role in meteorology? The discovered objects are quite large; they are not microorganisms. It is most natural to assume that they, like those on Earth, exist due to vegetation. Although the direct rays of the Sun, due to the thick cloud layer, as a rule, do not reach the surface of the planet, there is enough light there for photosynthesis. On Earth, diffuse illumination of 0.5-7 kilolux is quite enough for photosynthesis even in the depths of dense tropical forests, and on Venus it lies in the range of 0.4-9 kilolux. But if this article gives some idea about the possible fauna of Venus, then it is impossible to judge the flora of the planet based on the available data. It seems that some of its signs can be detected in other panoramas.
Regardless of the specific biophysical mechanism operating on the surface of Venus, at temperatures of incident T1 and outgoing T2 radiation, the thermodynamic efficiency of the process (efficiency? = (T1 - T2)/T1) should be somewhat lower than on Earth, since T2 = 290 K for Earth and T2 = 735 K for Venus. In addition, due to the strong absorption of the blue-violet part of the spectrum in the atmosphere, the maximum of solar radiation on Venus is shifted to the green-orange region and, according to Wien’s law, corresponds to a lower effective temperature T1 = 4900 K (at Earth T1 = 5770 K). In this regard, Mars has the most favorable conditions for life.
Conclusion about the mysteries of Venus
Due to interest in the possible habitability of a certain class of exoplanets with moderately high surface temperatures, the results of television studies of the surface of Venus, carried out in the Venera 9 missions in 1975 and Venera 13 in 1982, were carefully reconsidered. The planet Venus was considered as a natural high-temperature laboratory. Along with previously published images, panoramas that were not previously included in the main processing were studied. They show objects of appreciable size appearing, changing or disappearing, from a decimeter to half a meter, the random appearance of images of which cannot be explained. Possible evidence was discovered that some of the objects found, which had a complex regular structure, were partially covered with soil thrown out during the landing of the device, and were slowly released from it.
An interesting question is: what energy sources could life use in the high-temperature, non-oxidizing atmosphere of the planet? It is assumed that, like Earth, the source of existence of the hypothetical fauna of Venus should be its hypothetical flora, which carries out a special type of photosynthesis, and some of its samples can be found in other panoramas.
The television cameras of the Venus devices were not intended to photograph possible inhabitants of Venus. A special mission to search for life on Venus should be significantly more complex.
