APOD: Venusian Volcano Imagined (2020 Oct 27)

[APOD Robot]

Venusian Volcano Imagined

Explanation: What would an erupting volcano on Venus look like? Evidence of currently active volcanoes on Venus was announced earlier this year with the unexplained warmth of regions thought to contain only ancient volcanoes. Although large scale images of Venus have been taken with radar, thick sulfuric acid clouds would inhibit the taking of optical light vistas. Nevertheless, an artist's reconstruction of a Venusian volcano erupting is featured. Volcanoes could play an important role in a life cycle on Venus as they could push chemical foods into the cooler upper atmosphere where hungry microbes might float. Pictured, the plume from an erupting volcano billows upwards, while a vast lava field covers part of the hot and cracked surface of Earth's overheated twin. The possibility of airborne microbial Venusians is certainly exciting, but currently controversial.

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[adastra2020]

I wish NASA would post more realistic illustration... the composition of the Venus atmosphere as well as the atmospheric pressure (~90bar) at the surface are unlikely to ever allow such a view as depicted in this illustration. Science education is important, even when communicating to the general public.

[XgeoX]

This is really cheesy, looks like early nineties videogame quality.

Eric

[WWW]

If the artist would have just added a few melting clocks onto those Venusian lava fields we'd have a truly surreal masterpiece.

[heehaw]

I don't need to comment!

[Tszabeau]

I like the illustration, despite reminding me of Kuwait in the early 90’s.

[neufer]

If the artist would have just added a few melting clocks onto those Venusian lava fields we'd have a truly surreal masterpiece.

Salvador Dalí: The Persistence of Memory (1931})

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Chesley Bonestell: Surface of Venus, (1946-1947)

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The Persistence of Memory (Spanish: La persistencia de la memoria) is a 1931 painting by artist Salvador Dalí. The well-known surrealist piece epitomizes Dalí's theory of "softness" and "hardness", which was central to his thinking at the time. As Dawn Adès wrote, "The soft watches are an unconscious symbol of the relativity of space and time, a Surrealist meditation on the collapse of our notions of a fixed cosmic order". This interpretation suggests that Dalí was incorporating an understanding of the world introduced by Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity. Asked by Ilya Prigogine whether this was in fact the case, Dalí replied that the soft watches were not inspired by the theory of relativity, but by the surrealist perception of a Camembert melting in the sun.

It is possible to recognize a human figure in the middle of the composition, in the strange "monster" (with much texture near its face, and much contrast and tone in the picture) that Dalí used in several contemporary pieces to represent himself – the abstract form becoming something of a self-portrait, reappearing frequently in his work. The creature seems to be based on a figure from the Paradise section of Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights, which Dalí had studied. It can be read as a "fading" creature, one that often appears in dreams where the dreamer cannot pinpoint the creature's exact form and composition. One can observe that the creature has one closed eye with several eyelashes, suggesting that the creature is also in a dream state. The iconography may refer to a dream that Dalí himself had experienced, and the clocks may symbolize the passing of time as one experiences it in sleep or the persistence of time in the eyes of the dreamer.

The orange clock at the bottom left of the painting is covered in ants. Dalí often used ants in his paintings as a symbol of decay. Another insect that is present in the painting is a fly, which sits on the watch that is next to the orange watch. The fly appears to be casting a human shadow as the sun hits it. The Persistence of Memory employs "the exactitude of realist painting techniques" to depict imagery more likely to be found in dreams than in waking consciousness.

The craggy rocks to the right represent a tip of Cap de Creus peninsula in north-eastern Catalonia. Many of Dalí's paintings were inspired by the landscapes of his life in Catalonia. The strange and foreboding shadow in the foreground of this painting is a reference to Mount Pani.>>

[Holger Nielsen]

I wish NASA would post more realistic illustration... the composition of the Venus atmosphere as well as the atmospheric pressure (~90bar) at the surface are unlikely to ever allow such a view as depicted in this illustration. Science education is important, even when communicating to the general public.

I agree completely. As far as I remember the illumination at the surface of Venus would be like an overcast day here on Earth. The thick cloud layer would not allow the disk of the Sun to be ever visible, let alone at sunset.

[Ann]

I wish NASA would post more realistic illustration... the composition of the Venus atmosphere as well as the atmospheric pressure (~90bar) at the surface are unlikely to ever allow such a view as depicted in this illustration. Science education is important, even when communicating to the general public.

I agree completely. As far as I remember the illumination at the surface of Venus would be like an overcast day here on Earth. The thick cloud layer would not allow the disk of the Sun to be ever visible, let alone at sunset.

I like it.

As a realistic image? No. As a striking, memorable image.

I'm a simpleton when it comes to what pictures I like. Sue me. 🥴

Ann

[Tszabeau]

I have to point out that a truly realistic representation of the surface of Venus, as we would experience it, would include our deaths.

[Chris Peterson]

I have to point out that a truly realistic representation of the surface of Venus, as we would experience it, would include our deaths.

We could observe for a little while inside a sufficiently protective bubble.

[Venusian]

Actually it was painted by a Venusian. Their strange compound eyes work in the near infrared and correct refraction effects.

[BDanielMayfield]

The possibility of airborne microbial Venusians is certainly exciting, but currently controversial.

That's the last sentence of today's explanation. The last link in that sentence to the word controversial brings up a paper on a study looking more carefully for the supposed biomarker PH₃ in the Venusian atmosphere. The study's conclusion reads:

We find that the published 267-GHz ALMA data provide no statistical evidence for phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus.

So all that excitement over "Life on Venus!" was about something that there really is no evidence in support of at all.

[Ann]

The possibility of airborne microbial Venusians is certainly exciting, but currently controversial.

That's the last sentence of today's explanation. The last link in that sentence to the word controversial brings up a paper on a study looking more carefully for the supposed biomarker PH₃ in the Venusian atmosphere. The study's conclusion reads:

We find that the published 267-GHz ALMA data provide no statistical evidence for phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus.

So all that excitement over "Life on Venus!" was about something that there really is no evidence in support of at all.

Thanks, Bruce. My initial reaction to the claim that there might be life in the atmosphere of Venus was skepticism. I agree that we can't know that such life is impossible, but I have to chime in with Carl Sagan:

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

I'm not asking for extraordinary evidence from those that claim that there may be life in the atmosphere of Venus. But a good bit more evidence than they have presented so far would be nice.

Ann

[BDanielMayfield]

The possibility of airborne microbial Venusians is certainly exciting, but currently controversial.

That's the last sentence of today's explanation. The last link in that sentence to the word controversial brings up a paper on a study looking more carefully for the supposed biomarker PH₃ in the Venusian atmosphere. The study's conclusion reads:

We find that the published 267-GHz ALMA data provide no statistical evidence for phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus.

So all that excitement over "Life on Venus!" was about something that there really is no evidence in support of at all.

Thanks, Bruce. My initial reaction to the claim that there might be life in the atmosphere of Venus was skepticism. I agree that we can't know that such life is impossible, but I have to chime in with Carl Sagan:

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

I'm actually not asking for extraordinary evidence from those that claim that there may be life in the atmosphere of Venus. But a good bit more evidence than they have presented so far would be nice.

Ann

And I didn't mean to suggest that I thought Venusian atmospheric life is totally impossible, just highly improbable. In the last discussion on this topic I called for a mission or missions to actually find out what's really there, which I still hope to see, even with the negative evidence re PH₃.

[Markus Schwarz]

Does anybody have an idea what the green spot at the 7 o'clock position is supposed to be? Some interpretation of a fancy Venusian atmospheric effect at sun set?