[HN Gopher] NASA Study Reveals Venus Crust Surprise
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       NASA Study Reveals Venus Crust Surprise
        
       Author : mnem
       Score  : 19 points
       Date   : 2025-05-09 19:25 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (science.nasa.gov)
 (TXT) w3m dump (science.nasa.gov)
        
       | WalterBright wrote:
       | I wonder if Venus could be terraformed via a sun shield placed in
       | orbit around it. How big would it have to be to reverse the
       | runaway greenhouse effect?
        
         | vardump wrote:
         | Venus probably doesn't have enough hydrogen to be of any use.
        
         | gamescr wrote:
         | Part of the problem is having too much atmosphere. In the
         | original Cosmos Carl Sagan talked about a hypothetical solution
         | where we capture asteroids, and throw them at Venus in such a
         | way that they just nick the atmosphere and knock large
         | quantities of atmosphere out into space. One you reduce
         | atmospheric pressure to a certain level, things could become
         | habitable.
         | 
         | Then throw in iron form the atseroid belt to react with it to
         | form carbonates. Venus is dry so brining in hydrogen form the
         | outer planets would be necessary anyway to form wate r and thta
         | will account for a good bit. Garden the surface so subsurface
         | rocks which might react with the atmosphere cna absorb some.
         | (Assumign the subsurface rocks are thta reactive.) Scoop it off
         | with smaller versions of the same scoops used to harvets
         | hydrogen from the gas giants.
        
           | dylan604 wrote:
           | Couldn't we just build a MegaMaid and suck the atmosphere
           | out? If we're going to go sci-fi, it seem easier to hoover it
           | out than capture an asteroid and nick the atmosphere just
           | right.
        
             | shepardrtc wrote:
             | Something like a solar powered space elevator that just
             | blows atmosphere into the sun
        
               | bdamm wrote:
               | That would require a lot of energy to ensure the gasses
               | escape Venus' gravitational pull, which would in turn
               | effectively be a rocket. So then we'd be adjusting to
               | ensure we don't mess with Venus' orbit too much.
        
             | BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
             | Then, move the MegaMaid into an orbit around Mars and go
             | from suck to blow. Venus has too much atmosphere, Mars has
             | too little. Win Win.
        
       | minitoar wrote:
       | I would absolutely demolish a Venus Crust Surprise
        
       | ossopite wrote:
       | From the headline I can't decide if it was a study in astronomy
       | or gastronomy
        
       | perihelions wrote:
       | - _" Several upcoming missions, including NASA's DAVINCI (Deep
       | Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and
       | Imaging)"_
       | 
       | DAVINCI is actually cancelled in the latest budget request. For
       | obvious reasons, the NASA press office (the OP) won't talk about
       | this. But 50% of NASA's science funding is gone.
       | 
       | https://spacenews.com/white-house-proposal-would-slash-nasa-...
        
         | gammarator wrote:
         | > But 50% of NASA's science funding is gone.
         | 
         | The proposed cuts to science are catastrophic, but there's
         | still time to call your Congressperson.
         | 
         | https://aas.org/posts/news/2025/05/week-of-action
        
       | geuis wrote:
       | I'm blown away at the number of huge volcanos and relative lack
       | of craters. If that's right, Venus must recycle its surface
       | relatively often.
        
         | floxy wrote:
         | Are you just looking at the photo to determine volcanoes and
         | craters? Wouldn't we expect that with so much atmosphere on
         | Venus, that meteors would have a much harder time reaching the
         | surface? That is, much larger ones would burn up or get
         | deflected than on Earth.
        
       | quotemstr wrote:
       | Venus is a damned shame. Had planetary evolution gone just
       | slightly differently, the solar system could have had two
       | habitable water planets. Mars, owing to its size, was never going
       | to cut it, but Venus might have.
        
         | netsharc wrote:
         | I wonder how a system with 2 planets with intelligent lifeforms
         | would've developed culturally and politically... if both
         | civilizations grew at the same rate, 2 Galileos would've looked
         | at the other planet and figured out "we have neighbors!", but
         | it'd be several hundred more years before communication could
         | be done. Even know we don't have manned missions to Mars or
         | Venus...
        
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