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OLN.G | Venus

In the last lesson we talked about the Moon and how far from earth it actually is. In this lesson, we’re going to REALLY start breaking the bonds of Earth and start to venture into our actual solar neighborhood!

If you remember that it three days to fly to the moon, how long would it take to reach our sun, which is 149 million kilometres from Earth? Again, I’ll save you the math – it would take you 230 days to reach the sun from Earth…and that’s nowhere near the longest drive in the solar system. We’ll get into the really long trips in the next lesson, but for now, let’s talk about the other planets in our immediate neighbourhood.

As you travel on your 230-day trip to the Sun, you’ll close in on Venus first, in about 58 days, assuming that it’s at its closest point to Earth as you’re going by. As you pass Venus, you’ll see a bright, beautiful planet covered with a thick atmosphere, but you’re going to want to keep right on going. Although beautiful, Venus is a deadly place.

Venus is named for the Roman goddess of love, because it shone the brightest of the five planets known to ancient astronomers. Its surface is rocky and we think its core is made of iron. Scientists have considered colonizing Venus for a long time, but its inhospitable surface means that we would have to do so above the clouds.  

The atmosphere on Venus is so thick that heat can’t escape the planet’s surface, so the temperature there is hot enough to melt lead – 864 degrees Fahrenheit, or 462 degrees Celsius.

In addition to the heat, the air pressure on the surface of Venus is 89 atmospheres, making it one of the most unwelcoming places in our solar system. In order to experience 89 atmospheres of pressure here on Earth, you’d have to go almost 900 metres below sea level.

And as if the heat and pressure weren’t bad enough, the atmosphere itself is mostly made of carbon dioxide.  No breathing on Venus for humans, thanks. 

Venus has the longest day of all the planets in the solar system:  243 days, just to make one full rotation.  To make things more interesting, a year on Venus lasts about 225 days.  Yep, you read that right.  A day on Venus lasts almost twenty “Earth days” longer than a year.

Venera 13, a probe launched by the Soviet Union in 1981, landed on the surface but managed to survive only 127 minutes before it was crushed and incinerated. It did manage to send back the first colour images from the surface of Venus, though, and we learned a great deal about the planet from that attempt. In 1990, NASA launched Magellan, which mapped 98 percent of Venus’ surface. It sent back high-quality radar images of the Venusian terrain that showed evidence of vulcanism, tectonic movement, turbulent surface winds, kilometers of lava channels, and pancake-shaped domes.

So, best to fly on past Venus on your way to the sun.

Curriculum Reference Links

 

  • Earth and Space / Building Blocks/ 1:  Students should be able to describe the relationships between various celestial objects including moons, asteroids, comets, planets, stars, solar systems, galaxies and space.
  • Earth and Space / Building Blocks/ 3: Students should be able to interpret data to compare the Earth with other planets and moons in the solar system, with respect to properties including mass, gravity, size, and composition.


Young Scientist Spotlight:
HANNAH HERBST

10 Fun Facts: The Hab

1. Aquarius is the the world’s only permanent undersea research station.

2. Most missions last about two or three weeks.

3. Fabien Cousteau, grandson of Jacques Cousteau, beat his grandfather’s record month-long underwater expedition by spending 31 days on the Aquarius Reef Base in 2014.

4. The lab is used by NASA, the US Navy, and researchers and educators from around the globe for training and research.

5. The internet connection is better in the Hab than at many places above the water.

6. You have to swim underneath the facility in order to enter it.

7. Crew members are called aquanauts (NOT aquaNUTS!)

8. In 1994, a crew of scientists and divers had to evacuate Aquarius and climb up a rescue line to the surface in 15-foot seas after one of the habitat’s generators caught fire.

9. Aquarius was featured in the comic strip Sherman’s Lagoon in 2012.

10. The Hab was originally built in Texas.

10 Fun Facts: Coral

1. Reefs usually grow up on the east shore of land masses.

2. Parts of a coral reef can be harvested to make medications to treat cancers and other illnesses.

3. A coral reef isn’t a single organism; it’s actually a community of life that lives and thrives in one location.

4. Only about one percent of the world’s oceans contain coral reefs. That’s about the size of France.

5. Coral reefs are the largest biological structures on earth.

6. Corals are related to jellyfish and anemones.

7. There are over 2,500 species of corals. About 1,000 are the hard corals that build coral reefs.

8. Reefs grow where there are stronger wave patterns and currents to deliver food and nutrients.

9. The Great Barrier Reef is 500,000 years old.

10. Most coral reefs grow just about two centimeters per year.

10. Most coral reefs grow just about two centimeters per year.

10 Fun Facts: Invasive Species

1. To be considered invasive, a species must adapt to a new area easily. It must reproduce quickly. It must harm property, the economy, or the native plants and animals of the region.

2. Some invasive species are introduced accidentally, but others are brought deliberately.

3. Ship ballast water transports between 3,000 and 7,000 foreign species daily around the globe.

4. The total loss to the world economy as a result of invasive non-native species has been estimated at 5% of annual production

5. Invasive species have contributed to 40% of the animal extinctions that have occurred in the last 400 years.

6. Rodents are some of the worst invasive species.

7. There are an estimated 50,000 wild ring-necked parakeets in parks across London and southeast England.

8. Black and Norway rats annually consume stored grains and destroy other property valued over $19 billion.

9. Northern Pacific seastars reproduce very quickly. In one area where they were introduced, their population reached an estimated 12 million seastars in just two years.

10. Starlings were introduced to New York in the late 1800s, as part of an attempt to bring animals that were mentioned in Shakespeare‘s work to America.

Alert: Cuteness Overload!

Cutest animal in the ocean? Keep your Sea Otter. Forget the Dumbo Octopus. Axolotl? Close, but no cigar.

The winner of the Cutest Sea Animal prize is the Leaf Sheep Slug.

Yes, a slug. This tiny (5mm) animal, found near the Philippines, Indonesia, and Japan, looks like a cartoon sheep covered in bright green leaves with pinkish purple tips.

Bonus: it’s one of the only animals that can perform photosynthesis, thanks to all the algae it eats.

Beat that.
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