Venus. December 2021

In mid-December this year, perhaps the best conditions were formed for observing Venus - the planet closest to Earth - for the entire period of its evening visibility, which began in June, but was extremely unsatisfactory. Venus set almost simultaneously with the Sun. In northern latitudes, it was difficult to find it in the sky until November. But now everything has changed. And the planet is easy to spot in the south-southwestern part of the sky, relatively low above the horizon, even before sunset. And with the onset of evening twilight, Venus literally shines dazzlingly.

And although the favorable period of the evening visibility of Venus will not last long - in early January it will overstep into the morning sky, we have at least three weeks to enjoy its beauty. And there is a wonderful reason to talk about Venus as an astronomical object.

Since ancient times, and maybe even earlier, this luminary has been very popular. Among the ancient Greeks, a bright star-like object, visible in the morning or in the evening against the background of dawn, was associated with two characters - the goddess of love and beauty Aphrodite, but also with the companion and harbinger of the morning dawn - Eos Foros. The more familiar name Venus came to astronomy from the Roman pantheon of gods - in it this name also belonged to the goddess of love.

In ancient Babylon, the luminary was associated with the goddess Ishtar, but her powers were broader. In addition to love and carnal attraction, she led wars, agriculture, and revealed secret knowledge to the elect.

In some cultures, Venus, visible in the morning, and she, but visible in the evening, corresponded to different deities. This was the case, for example, in Egypt, and in Russia in the pre-Christian era - the ancient Slavs did not see unity in the images of those named as "Dennitsa", "Utrennitsa" and "Zornitsa", "Vechernitsa".

There is another - a little scary - name for the evening or morning star: Lucifer. It came from Rome, and literally means "Light Bearer" or "Angel of Light". But in the Middle Ages, the "Angel of Light" was recognized as the "Fallen Angel", and his image became extremely negative - associated with the servant of Satan, and even with Satan himself. Perhaps such a change is associated with the property of Venus to suddenly turn from an evening star into a morning one. And in the very near future, we too may become witnesses of such a “transformation”.

Despite the fact that Venus is visible as a very bright, spectacular luminary, it is never possible to see it at night (at least in temperate latitudes, although there are interesting exceptions here too). This is an inner planet - its orbit is located inside the orbit of the Earth. And if so, then Venus is always visible not far from the Sun, and never moves away from it by more than 48 degrees. But in those cases when the maximum angular distance of the planet from the Sun is accompanied by a significant excess of its declination (in comparison with the declination of the Sun), the duration of the visibility of Venus can reach 5 hours. This happens in the spring during periods of evening visibility, or in the fall during periods of morning visibility. But, as you can see, the current evening visibility of Venus fell in the fall - this is not very good for the northern hemisphere. But in the south this year, the visibility conditions for Venus were fabulously good.

In a number of its physical characteristics, Venus is close to Earth. She was even called “Sister of the Earth”. It practically corresponds to the Earth in mass and size, is shrouded in a dense atmosphere, and has a solid surface. In the middle of the last century, not only science fiction writers, but also serious scientists fully admitted the habitability of Venus.

Judge for yourself: the same as the Earth - 80% by mass, 90% by diameter, 70% by the distance to the Sun - everything is like ours, only “better”. Why don't some humanoids live there ... well, okay, it's not so simple with humanoids - all of a sudden they are all of divine origin (this is not a joke - there are many scientists among scientists who share religious ideas about the origin of man, but about other living creatures ...) - Something alive there definitely must be!

It was impossible to verify this. The dense atmosphere of the planet hid absolutely everything from astronomers. For a long time it was even impossible to understand whether Venus rotates around its axis? - and how quickly she does it. Even radar observations did not help much - dense clouds reflected even radio waves, and in visible light in the cloud layer there was no chance to notice at least some details - the view of the planet was completely flat, white as snow, without any details.

The atmosphere of Venus was discovered by Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov on June 6, 1761. The discovery was made during the transit of Venus across the solar disk. This is a rather rare occurrence - it happens twice in 150 years, but with an interval of 8 years. Two passes in a row, and a pause for 142 years. Needless to say, how lucky Lomonosov was: he was already a prominent scientist, he had a telescope, moreover, an optical design of his own design, the phenomenon itself could be observed from the territory of Russia, and surprisingly in good weather.

During the entry of the black circle of Venus onto the disk of the Sun, the scientist noticed how a clear glow flared up from the opposite side of the planet:

“A pimple appeared at the edge of the Sun, which became more evident the closer Venus came to the performance. Soon this pimple was lost, and Venus was suddenly without an edge. "

To explain what he saw, Mikhail Vasilyevich suggested that the phenomenon was caused by the refraction of light in the atmosphere of Venus. Later, the heroes of the fantastic film "Men in Black" more than once quoted this explanation in difficult situations.

It would seem that studying Venus from Earth is practically hopeless. However, even in such cases, the talent of the observer allows you to see something unusual. So, for example, the Soviet astronomer Sergei Konstantinovich Vsekhsvyatsky, at the limit of visibility with the eye, discovered vague flashes on the shadow side of Venus, interpreting them as thunderstorms. In the era of spacecraft exploration of Venus, Sergei Konstantinovich's assumption was confirmed - there are thunderstorms on Venus, and in terms of power they are grandiose - they could well have been noticeable from Earth. But no one succeeded in repeating the observations of the Soviet astronomer in that era.

By the way, Venus, like the Moon, changes phases, and it is visible now as a full round disk, now as a half, now as a narrow sickle. Moreover, Venus has the appearance of a sickle when approaching the Earth, when it is visible in a direction close to the direction to the Sun. So in December 2021, Venus will take on a crescent shape, which can be seen even through a telescope or strong binoculars.

Since the early years of the telescopic era and the discovery of Jupiter's satellites, astronomers have looked for satellites near Venus. Why not?! Jupiter has, the Earth has, Saturn eventually found satellites, and - not a few.

As often happens, if you really want it, then it starts to seem to be true. And there was at least two dozen pieces of evidence supporting the discovery of the satellites of Venus. All of them turned out to be a figment of the imagination of observers or mistaken for satellites by distant stars. And to this day, Venus is alone ... although not quite. She has a little friend - an unnamed asteroid numbered (524522) 2002 VE68, discovered only in 2002. Its exact size is still unknown, but it is unlikely that it exceeds half a kilometer. And its peculiarity is that - revolving around the Sun in an elongated elliptical orbit, it is constantly located near Venus. The period of its revolution around the Sun is exactly equal to the Venusian year. Such interaction of celestial bodies in science - Celestial mechanics - is called gravitational resonance. And for such small celestial bodies there is a special term - "quasi-satellite". By the way, the Earth also has quasi-satellites.

According to one of the hypotheses, Venus also had a real satellite, which was later lost. If we assume that the hypothesis is correct, this celestial body is now the planet Mercury. Many scientific factors work in favor of this hypothesis - the unusually high eccentricity of the orbit of Mercury, its extremely slow rotation, reverse and also very slow rotation of Venus around the axis (Venus - an exception to the rule - revolves around the axis in the opposite direction - not like other planets). But the most interesting thing is the exact resonance of the axial rotation of Venus and Mercury, as a result of which Mercury continues to look at Venus from the same side - with only some relatively small wobbles - librations. This is very similar to what happens in the Earth-Moon system - after all, the Moon looks at the Earth with only one side of it.

But the earthlings finally entered the Space Age - they learned how to send research stations to near-earth orbit and to the Moon. It's time to choose the first target among the planets. Of course, Venus was chosen.

In the 60s, both American and Soviet spacecraft rushed to Venus - literally in a swarm of bees. But no one knew what awaited the earthly pieces of iron on Venus. And there literally hell awaited them.

It turned out that in everything a planet similar to the Earth has completely different conditions near the surface. Dense clouds hid an extremely high temperature under them - about +470 degrees Celsius. Among all the planets in the solar system, Venus turned out to be the hottest. Even on Mercury, it is a little "cooler" - there at noon point +430, but after all, Mercury has a shadow side, turned away from the Sun - there is -170. On Venus, it is always +470 degrees - in the equatorial zone and at the poles, on the day and night sides - the temperature is the same. The dense atmosphere combined with the greenhouse effect gives such an amazing effect.

The density of Venus's atmosphere near its surface is 100 times higher than on Earth at sea level. Carbon dioxide, which makes up 96% of the Venusian atmosphere, at the surface level is in a special state of aggregation - something between gas and liquid - neither one nor the other, but very thick, dense, viscous. Spacecraft fired parachutes at high altitudes and landed as if plunging into the ocean (which has no obvious surface) - simply slowing down with their hull. But the first guests from Earth were crushed by the enormous pressure and their equipment could not withstand extremely high temperatures.

Almost all American vehicles have failed.

Soviet stations called "Venus" also got pretty bad. The first successful landing was carried out by the Venera-7 station. But in fact, it was the 17th launch towards the Morning Star. The device did not work for long, but in any case it was a victory - no one has yet been able to successfully land on the hot surface of the planet and transmit a radio signal about it.

The exploration of Venus became a triumph for Soviet cosmonautics. We were not very lucky with Mars, and we did not manage to send anything to distant giant planets at all - these projects did not receive financial support from the government. But a large number of missions to Venus have been successful. Moreover, where no other technique, except the Soviet one, could withstand. American vehicles could not survive in the conditions existing on Venus. All photographs of the surface of Venus and even a record of how the wind howls in the Venusian atmosphere is a contribution exclusively to Soviet cosmonautics. In particular, color photo panoramas of the surface of Venus were obtained by the last station of this series, Venera-14.

The high temperature and crushing pressure did not end there. The clouds, hiding the Venusian landscapes from the entire Universe, turned out to be composed of drops of concentrated sulfuric acid. To get to the surface, spacecraft had to first overcome this toxic boundary. But even behind him, the messengers from the earth awaited powerful thunderstorm fronts, high volcanic activity. A fairy tale, not a planet!

The last to date visits to the surface of Venus were carried out by the landing modules of the Soviet automatic stations Vega-1 and Vega-2. It was a very interesting mission. She went not so much to Venus as to Halley's comet, which visited the inner solar system in 1986. This comet is a rare visitor. She is near the Sun and the Earth every 76 years. It was impossible to miss her visit, and a whole "constellation" of spacecraft from different countries was being prepared for the comet expedition. Soviet scientists have found that the most convenient way to get to the comet is by making a gravitational maneuver near Venus. And since the path still lies past the "Morning Star", why not combine in this mission the study of two celestial bodies at once - a planet and a comet?

The decision was reflected in the names of the stations, because “Vega” is a continuous abbreviation for “Venus-Halley”. But this is also the name of the brightest star in the northern hemisphere - the alpha constellation Lyra - it is also called Vega.

Flying past Venus, the landing modules separated from both stations, and from each of them a little later balloons were thrown, which filled their balloons with helium and set off to fly in the clouds. The landing module "Vega-1" failed, unable to withstand extreme conditions, but all the other scouts worked normally. Atmospheric probes worked for an especially long time - we do not even know how long, because communication with the Earth was carried out through the stations leaving for the comet, and when the distance to them became very large, communication with the stratospheric balloons was simply interrupted due to the range, but they continued to send their measurement data that we will never get. However, there was a lot of data obtained then.

Since then (for the last 35 years) Venus has been studied only from flyby trajectories or orbits around the planet. The American station "Magellan" distinguished itself here, which in the 90s of the last century scanned the entire surface of the planet with its radars. And before that, the map of Venus was a solid blank spot. But now there are even globes of Venus. One of them is installed in the Moscow Planetarium - in the Urania Museum.

It would seem, why further study Venus, if it became clear to us that a person's foot will never set foot on its hot stones?

But we are also very far from the stars, and in the everyday sense it is futile. But we are studying them. There are no uninteresting objects for science. And Venus is still very important to us. And first of all, because it is completely incomprehensible what processes formed hellish conditions there. According to a number of calculations, Venus is in the habitable zone. Located on the very edge. But the Earth is not in the middle either. We are, in fact, located in the habitable zone - a special zone in which solar radiation creates enough heat for liquid water to exist - closer to the far end, where it is cold. But the mild greenhouse effect makes the Earth's climate softer and warmer than it could be without it. On Venus, everything could be much more suitable for life - a planet of warmth and sunlight, the fragrance of vegetation there would stretch from the equator to the poles, there would be no cold winters and draining summer heat, somewhat more gentle gravity, reliable protection from dense ultraviolet radiation atmosphere...

But the greenhouse effect has turned this speculative paradise into a catastrophic reality. Was Venus always this creepy? We cannot yet answer this question. But scientists, and all people on Earth, are concerned about the answer to another question: Does the future of Venus await the Earth?

The greenhouse effect, which has created extremely favorable for the emergence and development of life on Earth, has noticeably increased in the last century, which has already affected climate change. One can argue about the contribution of anthropogenic and technogenic factors to these changes, but the changes themselves can no longer be denied - the climate is changing. And it changes just in the Venusian direction.

Of course, I would like it not to go that far. Otherwise, we are all covered. We will not be able to adapt to a pressure of 100 atmospheres and a temperature of +470 degrees. And no organisms will succeed. Therefore, the study of Venus is quite important in the light of understanding the reasons that led to the conditions on the planet's surface. Having understood this, we will be able to foresee our future, and perhaps we will be able to change it - to avoid a catastrophe.

The protein form of life that exists on Earth is a unique phenomenon. Nothing like this has yet been found anywhere in the Universe. We don't even know if life is possible in some other forms? And the study of Venus is also interesting because it presents us with a research ground, the conditions of which are extremely difficult or impossible to recreate on Earth. And who knows, maybe even in such conditions life exists - a special one, not like ours?

Maybe this should be viewed as a joke, or maybe it makes sense to look at it seriously, but after decades after the first successful landings of Soviet spacecraft, the images transferred to Earth were taken from the archives. The outstanding Russian planetary scientist Leonid Vasilyevich Ksanfomality decided to investigate these unique frames, but already with the use of modern image processing programs.

Photos of Venusian landscapes have been processed using new technologies. New information was obtained about the structure of minerals, the form of volcanic bombs, of which there are many scattered over the surface at the stations. But along with this, the inexplicable was discovered - on the verge of vigilance of the cameras, objects were noticed that either appeared, then disappeared, or appeared in other images in other places of the landscape.

Leonid Vasilyevich's statement was quite serious - these are moving objects. Of course, you can't immediately talk about their wildlife, but what else can move on the surface, moving literally in minutes or even seconds?

So far, this question remains unanswered.

And new questions appear.

Literally a year ago, in the upper atmosphere of Venus - just above the sulfuric acid clouds - a noticeable concentration of phosphine was discovered - a chemical compound that is naturally formed only as a result of the activity of living organisms - some kind of microbes.

And here it should be noted that it is at the level of the clouds or slightly higher that the conditions on Venus are no longer so terrible. There is approximately the earth's atmospheric pressure. And roughly terrestrial temperatures. Of course there is acid. But science knows bacteria that are quite capable of living in sulfuric acid - they even use it for food. Who knows, maybe the upper atmosphere of Venus has its own primitive life? Life is generally quite tenacious.

Could it have arisen there? - it is unlikely. But if once there were other conditions on Venus, and life arose there in a favorable environment, then it could later survive in the clouds and above them.

After this news, interest in the "Sister of the Earth" again increased. Several projects have emerged to explore Venus using stratospheric balloons or airships hovering among the clouds. It is not necessary to land on the surface - in this total hell. But you can hover at an altitude of about 50 kilometers and collect information from there.

But human fantasy did not stop there. Projects are multiplying to create manned stations or even entire cities that will drift in the dense Venusian atmosphere. Such bases cannot be created on the surface. But in the atmosphere there you can literally swim, like in the ocean, creating oases of civilization based on small atolls.

These are quite technically feasible projects. Of course, it is expensive and difficult. But science has always returned the funds invested in it - in abundance, and gave tremendous opportunities to people, which could have been obtained in another way.

Currently, there are no technologies yet that allow to totally change the conditions and climate on the planets.

We need these technologies because no one guarantees that on Earth - even for natural reasons - everything will always be good for us. Perhaps for this "good" we still have to fight. And we need a training ground. Venus, in this sense, is an excellent testing ground. Of course, there are certain ethical views, according to which we have no right to invade other worlds and change something there. True, people have done this more than once, and acquired new spaces for their existence. In any case, the dispersal of our species across the entire surface of the planet has largely transformed its appearance. The earth would look much different if Homo sapiens remained to live in equatorial Africa.

There are different ways to assess this from a moral point of view. We exterminated mammoths (they did not die out like dinosaurs in a natural way - science has already confirmed this - we are the reason for their disappearance), we have already managed to use up the hydrocarbon resources that have been accumulating in the earth's crust for millions of years. And maybe our extravagance is not a good example for other civilizations. But it is unlikely that we could survive without all this, without the development and expansion of the habitat.

Nobody knows what awaits us in this development. But if it does not stop and we do not disappear as a species, our path lies in space - to other planets - now we can expand our range only through cosmic expansion. And it is possible that soaring cities in the atmospheres of other planets, including the atmosphere of Venus, will become a natural step for us into the future.

Now we are looking at a string of communications satellites, the International Space Station flying in the night sky among the stars. And our consciousness is filled with pride that we - People - were able to reach these milestones. Perhaps decades or centuries later, with the same feelings, we will look at the bright planet Venus shining in the evening skies of the Earth, knowing that somewhere out there, in the clouds of that distant world, the pioneers of earthly civilization are keeping watch. We will send them emails or even fly there on excursions and sightseeing tours.

What seems fantastic today may become a very important and inevitable reality tomorrow. Are we ready for it? Some people are ready. Others are in fear and doubt. There is even an idea that it is too early for us to go into space - to other planets. First you need to learn to live on your planet, learn to be human. It is a good idea to learn to be creative, not destructive, creatures. But it is precisely in the creation of space technologies that our creative vector is most clearly manifested. And it may well turn out that without dreams of conquering other planets, it is not destiny for us to become mature intelligent beings. Space sets before us such tasks that we can only solve by constantly developing. And this development is the guarantee of our existence. Without it, we will degrade and die out - even without catastrophes on a planetary scale. Without development, everything is doomed.

And while the stars are calling us to them, while the evening Venus beckons us with its brilliance, we have a chance to achieve a lot. And even if you are not a scientist, not an astronaut, are not engaged in the creation of new technologies, the radiance of heavenly bodies, hitting the retina of your eye, turns you into a traveler of heavenly orbits, through which we all have to pass.

Today you just look at the declining Venus, and tomorrow the people of the Earth will look from there at the blue planet - the brightest in the night skies of their new World, and say - “Did we really come from there?! It is hard to believe!"