On a tour of our solar system, I showed some characteristics of the planet Mercury and we could see what would happen if an object the size of the moon collides with that planet. Now we will travel 40 million kilometers from Earth to the sister planet, Venus.
Courtesy of Universe SandBox2 - Captured by the author of this publication.
In the 70's' the Soviet Union sent a probe to Venus, to see if it really was a paradise. The spacecraft called Venera, transmitted the first images of the planet. The scientists realized that it was not a tropical paradise as they imagined, but a hostile desert with a very intense heat that would melt until the lead.
Courtesy of Universe SandBox2 - Captured by the author of this publication.
Characteristics
Venus looks like our planet Earth in many aspects, has a similar size and composition, and possibly formed from the same gas cloud, more than 4000 Ma ago. But unlike the earth, 85% of its surface is covered by extinct volcanoes and solidified lava.
The clouds are of a deadly sulfuric acid, the atmospheric pressure is 90 times greater than that of the earth. But the biggest surprise is the temperature, almost the whole atmosphere is CO2. As on Earth, this gas acts like the glass of a greenhouse; lets light in, but retains heat.
On Venus the greenhouse effect caused a much greater increase than that of the earth. The surface is so hot that the rocks shine in the dark. With an average temperature of 460 °C it is the hottest planet in the solar system.
Also Venus has something very curious, its rotation is retrograde. That is to say, the turn on its axis is contrary to the turn of the Earth. The Earth rotates on its axis from West to East, and Venus from East to West. It also has a very slow rotation, a day lasts 243 Earth days, and the earth only takes 24 hours.
Venus is covered by a permanent cloud layer with a thickness of almost 20 km and is 60 times faster than the planet's rotation.
Size
Compared to its neighbor Mercury, which has a diameter of 4,879 km, Venus is much larger.
Courtesy of Universe SandBox2 - Captured by the author of this publication.
As I said its size is almost equal to that of the earth, the diameter of Venus is 12,103 km and that of the Earth 12,742 km.
Courtesy of Universe SandBox2 - Captured by the author of this publication.
Courtesy of Universe SandBox2 - Captured by the author of this publication.
What could happen to Venus so that its surface and rotation are different from Earth's?
Because of the distance from the sun, the planet Venus had to be more Earth-like, but I think her luck was in hands of another object.
Courtesy of Universe SandBox2 - Captured by the author of this publication.
Demonstration of the current surface and its retrograde movement.
I did several tests in the Universe SandBox2 simulator to do this demonstration. Some failed but little by little I did.
To perform this experiment I took the exoplanet Kepler-69c very similar to Earth but a little bigger.
Modified its size and density characteristics. I bombarded the planet with comets and asteroids with a size of approximately 1200 km in diameter and totally solid composition, the result was not so positive.
I say 'it was not so positive', because the planet did change its rotation to the East but it remained "cold" for many years and the water did not disappear. You need a bigger object, to change that.
So, I tried an asteroid and modified its radius to 1700 km, that is 3400 km in diameter. The path of the orbit I placed it to the East for the impact, with the intention of "slowing down" its rotation towards the west and changing its turn.
These were the results...
| Mass: 67.2 moons |
| Radius: 6275 km |
| Density: 4.77 g/cm3 |
| Temperature: -3.15°C |
| Rotation speed: 3.68 m/s |
| Direct Movement from West to East |
| Composition: Iron = 39%, Silicate = 50%, Water = 11% |
PLAY!!
| Mass: 76.3 moons |
| Radius: 7062 km |
| Density: 3.80 g/cm3 |
| Temperature: 455°C |
| Rotation speed: 20 m/s |
| Retrograde movement from East to West |
| Composition: Iron = 55%, Silicate = 45%, Water = 0% |
Conclusion
Shortly after the impact Venus became hot, then the fire and the possible volcanoes erected by the catastrophe made theirs with their lava, the carbon dioxide went into the atmosphere retaining the heat. Sure, you do not see it in the video but it was possibly what happened, its temperature increased due to this to more than 400%.
The iron core increased by 30%, and it is no surprise that the water evaporated after receiving an impact like that.
If we eliminate the atmosphere of Venus, the appearance of its surface would be like that of the previous image. A hellish desert, with volcanoes everywhere. But if we move the time line towards the future 10 thousand years, what happens? His appearance little by little is the same again. Could Venus be like "before" or as we imagine it was 10 thousand years ago?
This is just a theory that led to the animation in the great Universe SandBox 2 program.
I hope you have learned a little more about the sister planet Venus, I am not a scientist just a lover of science.
References:
-Venus. NASA. Autor:Brian Dunbar, Aug. 3, 2017.
https://www.nasa.gov/venus
-Venus. Space Place NASA. September 29, 2016.
https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/all-about-venus/sp/
-Venus (Planet). Wikipedia. 30 may 2018.
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_(planeta)