Love Letter to Venus

Oh, Venus, the prettiest of all,

What a magnificent night sky view!

Oh, Venus, the most spectacular fireball,

Let us show how much we love you!

Venus is not a shy planet—as the brightest of the planets in the sky, it rises every morning and sets every evening on Earth, earning its nicknames “morning star” and “evening star.” Because of its twice-daily occurrence, the planet seemed to be two different stars in the eyes of ancient astronomers. However, its official name, Venus, comes from the Roman goddess of love and beauty; Venus is the only planet in our solar system that is named after a female deity, which is why this planet largely represents women in popular culture. Furthermore, almost all Venusian surface elements recognize remarkable women whether they are real or mythical.

The first records of Venus date back to around 1600 BC, when Babylonians studied the sky above them and recorded their observations on various documents. Eventually, in the beginning of the 17th century, Galileo Galilei became the first person ever to view Venus through a telescope. His first discovery was that Earth’s “sister planet” has phases similar to the Moon, which reinforced the theory of Nicolaus Copernicus, who is widely credited for heliocentrism, the idea that the Sun was the center of the universe rather than the Earth.

Fun Fact: Venus spins backwards; the Sun rises in the west and sets in the east. The planet also rotates practically upright, hence the absence of seasons.

Since the atmosphere of Venus is shrouded by thick clouds, nobody knew what lay on the surface of Venus for a long time. Consequently, science fiction stories frequently embellished Venus, turning it into a land of rich rainforests, one gigantic ocean, or a botanical land populated with extraterrestrial life. Alas, the surface of Venus did not live up to any of those wondrous worlds; instead, the surface temperatures of about 900 degrees Fahrenheit and the intense air pressure—over 90 times the air pressure of Earth—ruled out most possibilities of any life on the hottest planet in the solar system. Venus only has craters that are larger than about a mile in diameter because smaller meteoroids will burn up in the compressed atmosphere before reaching the surface. The surface is so hot that the longest amount of time a lander could endure was under two hours (Venera 13 and Venera 14 in 1982). Most recent Venus missions utilize flybys and orbiters; engineers hope to construct a lander that can last much longer in the future.

A closer look at the planet’s surface through multiple successful spacecraft missions allowed astronomers to map out Venus’s rocky terrain, which appears orange due to the atmosphere. Its landscape is covered with countless volcanoes; new data suggests that volcanic activity on Venus might have happened much more recently than scientists initially thought.

Although Venus hosts many volcanoes, it is the atmosphere that produces its extremely high temperatures. The dense clouds that engulf Earth’s closest neighboring planet are actually composed of sulfuric acid, and they trap heat within Venus’s carbon dioxide and nitrogenous atmosphere. Ironically, the clouds also reflect and scatter sunlight, making it easy to spot at dawn and dusk on Earth.

Fun Fact: Super strong winds whisk clouds completely around Venus in the span of just five Earth days.

Venus hasn’t received much buzz for a while due to other more significant missions such as the possibility of humans landing on Mars. However, the most recent speculation about Venus occurred not too long ago: there might be life on Venus. A team of astronomers discovered a distinct molecule called phosphine in the clouds of Venus. Phosphine is a unique molecule since it requires a massive amount of heat and pressure to make, excluding some metabolic processes (which only exists in living organisms) and human technology. In other words, phosphine has been considered a potential sign of extraterrestrial life. Jupiter and Saturn are exceptions because they have the conditions (extreme heat and pressure) to create the molecule. Venus, on the other hand, lacks these conditions. In fact, since its atmosphere contains carbon dioxide, which is an oxygen-containing molecule, phosphine would be even less likely to form because it cannot exist in an oxygenic environment.

Another observation that points to the possibility of life on Venus is the atmospheric setting; in the clouds (roughly 30 miles above the surface), temperatures range from zero to 50 degrees Celsius and the air pressure is similar to the air pressure at Earth’s sea level. Despite the high acidity (due to the sulfuric acid), there are microbes on Earth that can thrive in these circumstances. In addition, scientists believe that there is something in the atmosphere that is absorbing some sunlight because Venus’s clouds have been reflecting less and less sunlight since the mid-20th century.

Fun Fact: The belief that water used to dwell on the surface of Venus is quite popular within the scientific community.

Even though all these conjectures seem to stack up, there is no concrete proof that life exists on Venus. The discovery of phosphine in the clouds could have been a fluke in the detection process. Whatever it may be, this theory is still in its early stages and needs time to develop substantial evidence. All facts started as mere observations and later progressed into scientific theories and laws as evidence was gathered to support these observations. Eventually, they became solid facts. That being said, with enough evidence, the observation of phosphine molecules in Venus’s cloud-level atmosphere could potentially lead to the discovery of extraterrestrial life! I hope you learned something new today! Keep a lookout for the next post!

You hide all your faults discreetly,

But we still love you completely!

How we’ll miss your brilliant, white hue,

Farewell, we bid you adieu!