Astronomy
- RUNAWAY GLOBAL WARMING ON VENUS
Venus is often referred to as Earth’s “sister planet” because of its similarity in size. Apart from this similarity Venus is very different from Earth. Read the attached Scientific American article (2000) “Global Climate Change on Venus” by Bullock &Grinspoon and answer fully with supporting details (include page numbers and sentences) the following questions.
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- Define the following terms used in the article: (a) mélange (b) lineament (c) tesserae (d) biota (e) anthropogenic
- (a) The age of Venus, and of the solar system as a whole, is thought to be about 4.6 million years. Calculate the number of impact craters that should have been formed on the surface of Venus in the history of the planet. Use the rate of crater formation given in the article. (b) How does your answer to (a) compare to the number of craters actually observed on Venus, as given in the article? (c) where on Venus are caters observed? What do these facts tell us about the geologic history of Venus?
- How are water vapor (H2O) and sulfur dioxide (SO2) added to the atmosphere of Venus? Do they remain in the atmosphere? If not, where do they go? How are these gases thought to have affected the planet’s surface temperature over the past 800 million years?
- What geologic evidence on Venus indicates that the planet once had a much hotter surface than today?
- Describe how the absence of water on Venus helps explain the lack of plate tectonic activity on that planet.
