Planets

"The old thinking was, Oh, Mercury, it's an old burned-out cinder and not so interesting. Now, here's this jaw-dropping thing that nobody ever predicted."

"What strong allurement draws, what spirit guides, Thee, Vesper! brightening still, as if the nearer Thou com'st to man's abode the spot grew dearer Night after night?"

"[In 1958] some astronomers thought that Venus might have a rotation period near the 24-hour mark, as Earth and Mars do. In that case, the microwave emission might be quite copious even from the dark side, since that would have been exposed to the Sun a few hours before. In that case, microwave emission might indicate a roughly Earthlike temperature, since the fact that Venus is closer to the Sun might be balanced by the fact that its cloud layer reflects most of the sunlight it receives. Well, [[w:Cornell Mayer|[Cornell] Mayer]] did detect the microwave radiation from Venus and he did not get either expected alternative. He did not get a very low temperature of a dark side that never sees the Sun, nor did he get an Earthlike temperature, nor, for that matter, anything between. Instead, he got a flood of microwave radiation that indicated a temperature of at least 300° C, some two hundred degrees above the boiling point of water. It was a thunderbolt. No one had expected such a hot Venus."

"Fair Venus shines Even in the eye of day; with sweetest beam Propitious shines, and shakes a trembling flood Of softened radiance with her dewy locks. The shadows spread apace; while meekened Eve, Her cheek yet warm with blushes, slow retires Through the Hesperian gardens of the west, And shuts the gates of day."

"Thou fair-hair’d angel of the evening, Now, whilst the sun rests on the mountains, light Thy bright torch of love; thy radiant crown Put on, and smile upon our evening bed!"

"Counting stars by candlelight All are dim but one is bright: The spiral light of Venus Rising first and shining best Oh, from the northwest corner Of a brand-new crescent moon Crickets and cicadas sing A rare and different tune"

"I think it is a sad reflection on our civilization that while we can and do measure the temperature in the atmosphere of Venus we do not know what goes on inside our soufflés."

"Venus, unlike the Earth, has a hellish temperature. Venus is farther from the Sun than Mercury but is even hotter. The high temperature is due to an extreme greenhouse effect, the process by which the atmospheric gases raise the temperature by absorbing outward flowing heat. Earth’s atmosphere may once have contained large amounts of carbon dioxide, the way Venus’s atmosphere does now. But on earth, the oceans absorbed much of carbon dioxide, so that gas could not trap as much heat in the atmosphere as it does on Venus. ... Venus is earth’s “evil twin”. It’s about the same size as earth, but with deadly heat and pressure, an unbreathable atmosphere, and highly acid rain."

"As Venus moves up and down through our twilight skies, the farthest it gets from the Sun is an angle of about 47 degrees. (This is "maximum elongation")"

"You can feel when you are locked in resonance in a circle of drummers playing parts complimentary to yours. Venus and Earth have been locked in this same way, beating five against eight, for billions of years. There is no accepted physical explanation for the Venus-Earth five/eight polyrhythm. Some regard it as merely a coincidence, noting that the correspondence is not exact (it is actually off by two days of 2,820). But I suspect that this close rhythmic connection between the orbits of Venus and Earth goes back to the time when the planets were being formed from collisions between smaller “planetesimals”."

"The great beauty and striking presence of Venus led to an association by the Greeks with Aphrodite, goddess of beauty and love. Inanna, Ishtar, Astarte and Venus are other names given to variations of this goddess in Western history, all associated with the planet. A knowledge of close coincidence between the cycles of Venus and human pregnancy may have contributed to the persistent, but nonexclusive of female characteristic to Venus. Western attributes The Venus de Milo and Botticelli's Birth of Venus (popularly known as Venus on the Half Shell) are icons of this imagery in Western culture."

"Maya felt that we owed our existence to Venus who they called Kukulcan and their astronomer-priests repaid the debt with the blood of human sacrifice. Unfortunately, almost everything we know about the Maya’s sophisticated and complex system of Venus observations/ computations/prediction/worship comes from only four books that escaped the book-burning frenzy of the invading Christians. Included in this meticulously painted bark paper books is an abundance of astronomical information, including table of solar and lunar motions and table of Venus ephemeris, or table of motions, which is accurate for over a hundred years. The entire Mayan calendar, as were those of all Mesoamerican civilizations, was based on the 260-days Venus appearance interval. The 260-day Mayan calendar is still in use today in many areas of Guatemala. The 260-day Venus interval and the 365-day year come into phase every 18,980 days, or 53 years."

"[L]et's trace the origin and history of the popular vision of Venus as Earth's soggy twin. The striking brilliance that makes Venus such a noticeable presence in our sky results paradoxically from the same feature that long kept her cloaked in mystery. The planet is completely shrouded in clouds that reflect nearly 80 percent of the Sun’s light back into space, making Venus the brightest of worlds."

"Venus, all you need to do is identify some feature or mark and note the time it takes to reappear, as it rotates around the globe. Beginning in 1666, Cassini made the first attempt to do this. He found a rotation period of 23 hours and 21 minutes. In 1789, Schroder refined this estimate to 23 hours, 21 minutes, and 19 seconds."

"For Venus is (as was well known by early telescopic observers) literally right next door. The closest planet to Earth, at every inferior conjunction she swings to within one hundred times the Moon's distance."

"In 1956, passive radio observations had allowed a startling discovery that led to the first serious challenge to the fantasies of a warm, wet Venus. Mysteriously, the planet was emitting very large amounts of microwave radiation. Further observations in the 1960s confirmed its brightness when viewed with microwave eyes."

"As long as Venus remained an object of distant observation in our sky, there was no way to be sure, and science fiction writers were free to populate Venus with ocean-dwelling beasts and evil dictators (news of the problematical microwaves was first published the same year that Zsa Zsa was thrilling audiences with her Venusian antics). We had to go there to demand some answers. This is where the rockets enter the story... the cold-war “space race” was on, science was along for the ride, onward to the planets."

"Venus was the target for the first spacecraft sent from Earth to another planet, Mariner 2 was launched on August 27, 1962."

"[T]hroughout the 60s, 70s, and 80s our understanding of Venus slowly increased in depth and sophistication. But still the clouds did not clear, and major mysteries remained. The early Soviet efforts produced a string of failures...Venera 3 — actually reached Venus only to crash into the planet on March 1, 1966...the first successful mission Venera 4, reached Venus in October 1967 — first planetary probe to enter the atmosphere of another planet, do direct experiments and radio home the results...During its brief (ninety-four –minute) decent by parachute, the spacecraft measured conditions in and below the clouds, confirming that the atmosphere of Venus is mostly carbon dioxide and recording increasing temperature and pressure...at an altitude of more than sixteen miles."

"On Earth, only dust and pebbles get snuffed (making "shooting stars"), but on Venus you don't get any craters smaller than about two miles across. We expected this. In fact, the small size cutoff of craters conforms so closely to pre-Magellan predictions that it was a confidence booster for our models of the passage of small bodies through planetary atmospheres."

"But on Venus you can't tell, so the hypothesis is consistent with the way all the craters sit atop the "paint job" of planet wide lava flows. Unfortunately, this scenario is only slightly more plausible than crater-worshiping."

"Venus should have a similar overall heat production, and it has to be losing this heat somehow. It can't be holding it inside because the whole planet would just be molten. It is not enough to simply pronounce that Venus looks different from Earth so it does not have plate tectonics. We have to find some cooling mechanism."

"We are just starting to think about how similar feed backs between the surface and atmosphere may be affecting the climate on Venus. Although the Magellan mission was mostly about the surface, it has caused us to rethink much of what we thought we knew about the atmosphere."

"Mars is the most Earthlike of the other planets in its surface conditions, but Venus may be the most Earthlike in its activity. All three planets started out young and restless, with warm, churning interiors and water flowing on their surfaces. But they have gone their separate ways. Mars cooled off...Venus, too, lost its ocean, but it retains an active churning interior and a surface that has been reworked many times by processes that are apparently still ongoing."

"Erstwhile the star of dawn thy light on living men was shed; But now in death an evening star, thou’rt light among the dead."

"Chemistry dissolves the goddess in the alembic, Venus the white queen, the universal matrix, Down to molecular hexagons and carbon-chains."

"Some scientists believe that until about 500 million years ago the Venus surface was almost entirely devoid of landforms. Streams and oceans of molten rock were relentlessly pouring out of the interior filling in and covering over any relief that had managed to form."

"Venus has about 90 times more air than Earth. It isn't mainly oxygen and nitrogen as here — it's carbon dioxide. But carbon dioxide doesn't absorb visible light either. What would the sky look like from the surface of Venus if Venus had no clouds? With so much atmosphere in the way, not only are violet and blue waves scattered, but all other colours as well — green, yellow, orange, red. The air is so thick, though, that hardly any blue light makes it to the ground; it’s scattered back to space by successive bounces higher up. Thus the light that does reach the ground should be strongly reddened — like an Earth sunset all over the sky. Further sulfur in the high clouds will strain the sky yellow. Pictures taken by the Soviet Venera landers confirm that the skies of Venus are a kind of yellow-orange."

"Those who are skeptical about carbon dioxide greenhouse warming might profitably note the massive greenhouse effect on Venus. No one proposes that Venus's greenhouse effect derives from imprudent Venusians who burned too much coal, drove fuel-inefficient autos, and cut down their forests."

"Thou, Hesper, bringest homeward all That radiant dawn sped far and wide: The sheep to fold, the goat to stall, The children to their mother’s side."

"For a breeze of morning moves, And the planet of Love is on high, Beginning to faint in the light that she loves On a bed of daffodil sky, To faint in the light of the sun she loves, To faint in his light, and to die."

"The universe is hilarious! Like, Venus is 900 degrees. I could tell you it melts lead. But that's not as fun as saying, 'You can cook a pizza on the windowsill in nine seconds.' And next time my fans eat pizza, they're thinking of Venus!"

"The Venus transit is not a spectacle the way a total solar eclipse is a spectacle."

"There are certain calculations I should like to make with you, To be sure that your deductions will be logical and true; And remember, 'Patience, Patience,' is the watchword of a sage, Not to-day nor yet to-morrow can complete a perfect age. I have sown, like Tycho Brahé, that a greater man may reap; But if none should do my reaping, 'twill disturb me in my sleep So be careful and be faithful, though, like me, you leave no name; See, my boy, that nothing turn you to the mere pursuit of fame.I must say Good-bye, my pupil, for I cannot longer speak; Draw the curtain back for Venus, ere my vision grows too weak: It is strange the pearly planet should look red as fiery Mars,— God will mercifully guide me on my way amongst the stars."

"For me Venus holds special fascination because of it many close connections to Earth, and the important role it has played in our changing ideas about the universe and our place in it. It is brightest thing in our night sky, after the full moon, and has long attracted human worship, fear, and calculation. A slightly twin to our planet in size and weight, Venus (as we have learnt recently) is also currently active planet with a churning interior, young surface and continually recycling atmosphere. It is in many ways the most Earth like of other planets and a natural laboratory for studying some of the most crucial environmental tests facing us."

"It is known that there is an infinite number of worlds, but that not every one is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so if every planet in the Universe has a population of zero then the entire population of the Universe must also be zero, and any people you may actually meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination."

"In 1684 Dr Halley came to visit him at Cambridge, after they had been some time together, the Dr asked him what he thought the Curve would be that would be described by the Planets supposing the force of attraction towards the Sun to be reciprocal to the square of their distance from it. Sir Isaac replied immediately that it would be an Ellipsis, the Doctor struck with joy & amazement asked him how he knew it, why saith he I have calculated it, whereupon Dr Halley asked him for his calculation without any farther delay. Sr Isaac looked among his papers but could not find it, but he promised him to renew it, & then to send it him."

"And the mass starts into a million suns; Earths round each sun with quick explosions burst, And second planets issue from the first."

"We will look upon the earth and her sister planets as being with us, not for us."

"It’s so hard to balance in our minds the knowledge that ‘the world’ is mundanely ‘a planet.’ The former is so holy; the latter merely a science project."

"Most known extrasolar planets (exoplanets) have been discovered using the radial velocity, or transit methods. Both are biased towards planets that are relatively close to their parent stars, and studies find that around 17–30% of solar-like stars host a planet. Gravitational microlensing, on the other hand, probes planets that are further away from their stars. Recently, a population of planets that are unbound or very far from their stars was discovered by microlensing. These planets are at least as numerous as the stars in the Milky Way."

"The Builder of this Universe was wise, He plann’d all souls, all systems, planets, particles: The Plan He shap'd all Worlds and Æons by, Was—Heavens!—was thy small Nine-and-thirty Articles!"

"In space there are countless constellations, suns and planets; we see only the suns because they give light; the planets remain invisible, for they are small and dark. There are also numberless earths circling around their suns, no worse and no less than this globe of ours. For no reasonable mind can assume that heavenly bodies that may be far more magnificent than ours would not bear upon them creatures similar or even superior to those upon our human earth."

"I would like to start by emphasizing the importance of surfaces. It is at a surface where many of our most interesting and useful phenomena occur. We live for example on the surface of a planet. It is at a surface where the catalysis of chemical reactions occur. It is essentially at a surface of a plant that sunlight is converted to a sugar. In electronics, most if not all active circuit elements involve non-equilibrium phenomena occurring at surfaces. Much of biology is concerned with reactions at a surface."

"There really are not any spheres in the heavens ... Those which have been devised by the experts to save the appearances exist only in the imagination, for the purpose of enabling the mind to conceive the otion which the heavenly bodies trace in their course and, by the aid of geometry, to determine the motion numerically through the use of arithmetic."

"That the machine of Heaven is not a hard and impervious body full of various real spheres, as up to now has been believed by most people. It will be proved that it extends everywhere, most fluid and simple, and nowhere presents obstacles as was formerly held, the circuits of the Planets being wholly free and without the labour and whirling round of any real spheres at all, being divinely governed under a given law."

"Copernicus, who rightly did condemn This oldest system, form'd a wiser scheme; In which he leaves the Sun at Rest, and rolls The orb terrestrial on its proper poles; Which makes the night and day by this career, And by its slow and crooked course the year. The famous Dane, who oft the modern guides, To earth and sun their Provinces divides: The earth's rotation makes the night and day, The sun revolving through th'eccliptic way Effects the various seasons of the year, Which in their turn for happy ends appear. This scheme or that, which pleases best, embrace, Still we the fountain of their motion trace. Kepler asserts these wonders may be done By the magnetic vertue of the sun, Which he, to gain his end, thinks fit to place Full in the center of that mighty space, Which does the spheres, where planets roll, include, And leaves him with attractive force endu'd. The sun, thus seated, by mechanic laws, The earth, and every distant planet draws; By which attraction all the planets found Within his reach, are turn'd in ether round."

"The fact that this chain of life existed [at volcanic vents on the seafloor] in the black cold of the deep sea and was utterly independent of sunlight—previously thought to be the font of all Earth's life—has startling ramifications. If life could flourish there, nurtured by a complex chemical process based on geothermal heat, then life could exist under similar conditions on planets far removed from the nurturing light of our parent star, the Sun."

"The only truly alien planet is Earth."

"Gauss calculated the elements of the planet Ceres and his analysis proved him to be the first of theoretical astronomers no less than the greatest of 'arithmeticians.'"