Ancient Planets
Kepler 444 is an old star, of spectral class K0, 117 light years away in the constellation Lyra. Recently researchers determined it has a planetary system. The five planets are between Mercury and Venus in size. All are closer to Kepler 444 than Mercury is to our sun, so they're too hot to be habitable. Nevertheless it's interesting that such an ancient, metal poor star has such a retinue. Kepler 444 is around 11.2 billion years old. Generally, it was thought that stars of that age, known as Population II, are too lacking in heavy elements to have terrestrial planets.
Of the five planets, the four nearest their star, known as Kepler 444b, c, d and e, are roughly Mars-sized. Kepler 444b is the smallest, with about 40% the diameter of Earth. Kepler 444c is slightly larger--.497%. Kepler 444d is slightly over half (.53) Earth's diameter. Kepler 444e is around the same size as d--.546.
These worlds are almost certainly bereft of volatiles. The only exception may be polar ice, in perpetually shaded craters. Inasmuch as Mars, with 53% Earth's diameter, can barely retain an atmosphere even at 1.5 AU from the sun, all Keplerian planets probably resemble the moon or Mercury.
Kepler 444f is the largest, with a radius about 74% that of Earth. It is smaller than Venus (95% Earth's diameter) and essentially as desolate as the others. Nevertheless, it might've been habitable had it been orbiting its star at a greater distance.
A key lesson of the Keplerian system is that rocky planets of reasonably large size had already begun forming just 2.5 billion years after the Universe began. Kepler 444 and its planets are 80% the age of the Universe.
Conceivably, a habitable planet already existed 11 billion years ago. If life began that early, by now it would have had a six billion year head start on us.
One thing I always considered absurd is the search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence via radio transmissions (SETI). Given the likelihood that one or more ET civilizations may be billions of years older, we should assume contact will be made by them, via technological means we can scarcely grasp. The UFO phenomenon is precisely what the latest knowledge predicts. SETI, not UFOlogy, should be disparaged. The probable existence of ancient Earths should lead us to expect aliens arriving here, exhibiting the most astonishing capabilities. For several decades, this has in fact been observed.
Of the five planets, the four nearest their star, known as Kepler 444b, c, d and e, are roughly Mars-sized. Kepler 444b is the smallest, with about 40% the diameter of Earth. Kepler 444c is slightly larger--.497%. Kepler 444d is slightly over half (.53) Earth's diameter. Kepler 444e is around the same size as d--.546.
These worlds are almost certainly bereft of volatiles. The only exception may be polar ice, in perpetually shaded craters. Inasmuch as Mars, with 53% Earth's diameter, can barely retain an atmosphere even at 1.5 AU from the sun, all Keplerian planets probably resemble the moon or Mercury.
Kepler 444f is the largest, with a radius about 74% that of Earth. It is smaller than Venus (95% Earth's diameter) and essentially as desolate as the others. Nevertheless, it might've been habitable had it been orbiting its star at a greater distance.
A key lesson of the Keplerian system is that rocky planets of reasonably large size had already begun forming just 2.5 billion years after the Universe began. Kepler 444 and its planets are 80% the age of the Universe.
Conceivably, a habitable planet already existed 11 billion years ago. If life began that early, by now it would have had a six billion year head start on us.
One thing I always considered absurd is the search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence via radio transmissions (SETI). Given the likelihood that one or more ET civilizations may be billions of years older, we should assume contact will be made by them, via technological means we can scarcely grasp. The UFO phenomenon is precisely what the latest knowledge predicts. SETI, not UFOlogy, should be disparaged. The probable existence of ancient Earths should lead us to expect aliens arriving here, exhibiting the most astonishing capabilities. For several decades, this has in fact been observed.
posted by starman at 4:02 AM
34 Comments:
Intelligent beings on planets much older than Earth would have a much more advanced technology than us. The reason is that they have had a head start. It has already been shown that the normal speed of light can be exceeded. For example, light beams sucked in by black holes have gone past the usual speed of light. Civilizations much older than ours would know how to built starships with hyperdrive capabilities.
Neal Robbins
I hadn't heard about light beams sucked in by black holes exceeding the "normal" speed of light. Einstein maintained that faster than light travel is impossible.
The most important consideration is not the speed but that long head start. I don't believe in faster-than-light travel, but I couldn't disprove it but more importantly I DO believe that we could reach speeds of 1/10 c, but even if we could go no faster than say 1/30 c, within a billion years we could--make that WILL-- be all over galaxies as far as 30 million light-years away, which I believe is dozens if not hundreds of galaxies (I could be wrong, I'll try to check that out). So my question to you all is, What then is our moral obligation if we encounter billions of planets with life at various levels of ability, technology, and civilization? Or would we try to do what is moral or would we behave badly?
Anyhow it is fascinating to read of these ancient planets and I'll bet that like Mercury and the Moon they do have enough water to make colonization easier (also, if a planet were close enough to its sun to keep one whole face in permanent darkness, that entire side might be icy). I would just like to see some statistical guesses based on what planets have been found relative to the amount of searching we've done, as to the likelihood of finding more planets around other stars inn our galaxy.
I agree about the potential effects of a long head start. Even if nobody aaproached c, aliens by now should be everywhere--and in light of UFO reports, are. Considering that we're rank beginners compared to just about every other civilization out there, we're in no position to "behave badly." A key lesson of recent years is that planetary systems are commonplace.
yes, I believe that there are millions of inhabitable, life-evolvable planets in our galaxy--which seems like a conservative estimate since it would be only one such planet for every hundred-thousand stars, and out of those millions probably at least hundreds would have already evolved beings more advanced than us. Therefore, a billion years from now when we are all over all the galaxies within 30 million light years by my other conservative estimate, we will be sharing each of those galaxies with thousands of advanced alien races, mingling with them under the governance of the various galactic federations and 1 or 2 Intergalactic Federations (always capitalized [lol]).
I think some people seem to have a hard time comprehending intergalactic journeys lasting tens of thousands of years because some people are still stuck with images of astronauts cooped up in cramped little spacecraft. No way!!! Any intergalactic trip will involve a fleet of hundreds of giant spaceships, spaced out a few million miles from each other, which is to say that travel among them will be easy and common, each loaded with tens of thousands of people and thousands of things to do, and all--everyone--in continuous communication with their worlds of origin.
I'm also optimistic space has great potential, and exploration/travel will occur on a grand scale. You've seen my works on UFOs. I've long thought other beings are already doing it and probably have been for a long time.
Btw progrev, aren't you good at math? I'm curious about the potential habitability of a Kepler 444f sized world. How massive is a planet with .74 of Earth's diameter likely to be, and what would its gravitational strength be? Mars is .53 Earth diameter and has only about a tenth of earth's mass. Venus is .95 earth's diameter and has about .81 of its mass. It seems Kepler 444f is intermediate in diameter between them but what about mass/gravity?
Yea, I love math! The volume of a planet is proportional to the cube of the radius, so 444f would have about 40% of Earth's volume; and one might well expect it to be about 70% as dense as Earth, so that would give it 28% of Earth's mass. The surface "grabbity" is proportional to radius times density, so that would be .74 x.7, or about half Earth's "gravy" (which nickname for gravity do you prefer? I use both in my sci-fi novels...). The escape velocity is proportional to gravy x radius, so that would throw in another factor of .74,so this would yield about 3/8 of Earth's E.V., which is still far higher than the speed of sound (which is about the same as the speed of the air molecules)so it should be able to hold on to an atmosphere except that it's too hot (except I don't know exactly how hot it is). A related problem I run into in my sci-fi is, Is the gravy high enough to bring rain down out of the skies and enable rivers to flow? I haven't seen any scientific data about those questions, so I just assume that even as little as 1% of Earth's gravy would do the jobs.
I wanted too to add something about intergalactic (and even interstellar) travel, which is that on these very long voyages, you wouldn't just send out a one-time fleet, but a steady stream of them, like a million people per year, which would be a billion people per thousand years to Andromeda, say. But at some point we probably will want to curb our population growth to the extent that we might not want to send out quite so many human beings to too many galaxies per millennium..
Judging by our solar system, the estimate of 70% Earth's density is a bit low for a terrestrial planet, although Mars is about that dense. Venus, though, is 95% as dense as our planet and Mercury is denser. But I heard the minimum size for habitability is .4 Earth mass. If Kepler 444f has 40% Earth's volume, it would have to be 100% as dense to be barely big enough. So even if it received only as much stellar energy as we do, it's unlikely to be habitable. Still, it's interesting that a nearly habitable world already existed 6 billion years before ours. :)
We'd have to do an awful lot of terraforming to send out a million people a year. I think its likely future beings will be androids designed to better withstand conditions in space or long voyages.
Clarification: When I wrote "Mercury is denser" I meant denser than VENUS not Earth.
Yes on thinking it over later I felt that 70% as dense as Earth was probably a bit low, try 80-90%. I hadn't heard that .4 Earthmass figure, is that based on its ability to retain an atmosphere at comfortable temperatures? I don't think that's really too important because by erecting a shield, tarp, ceiling or roof over an area, you can create large living spaces with only a few million tons of air. At 25 pound-masses per square meter, a million tons of air could cover 40 million sq m, about 5 km x 8 km, say; and with abundant solar energy whether for electrolysis or transportation, a million tons of air should not be hard to come by. (The ceiling could be 20-50 feet above the surface. A million people could live well within a 40 sq km area since they would be able to go outside the shield for recreation in their space suits which can be made comfortable and flexible.) I still have not had time to check out the number of galaxies within 30 million light years or the exact formula for escape velocity, will try to do that soon!
I just wanted to note too that thousands of such 5km x 8km cities could be placed on each of many moons and asteroids, (e.g., there are quite a few asteroids 200 km in diameter with surface areas of over 120,000 sq km, on which 1,000 5km x 8 km cities would occupy less than a third of their total surface and hold a billion people. And remember that it s easy to go outside the shields for recreation and also to roam and play and work in interasteroidal to interplanetary space (which is necessary for life to be free and fun and interesting).
Yes, I presume .4 Earth mass is the minimum needed to retain an atmosphere at comfortable temperatures. No doubt you could terraform a smaller world, or just build domed colonies but I was thinking in terms of the planet's ability to give rise to indigenous life and a civilization.
You mentioned access to air and water. The Kepler 444 worlds may be like Mercury. Most of their volatiles were lost LONG ago (maybe 10 billion years ago in their case) but assuming zero obliquity due to tidal dissipation (as with Mercury and Venus) some water and other volatiles may remain frozen in perpetually shaded polar craters.
Also how many of them might have been so close to their sun that they always face the same side towards it (wish I could find a formula for that!), in which case the whole entire dark side, not just the poles, could be full of ice? (There won't be any ice on Venus even if some of its polar areas are in perpetual night, because the heavy atmosphere causes planetwide uniformity of temperature 865 F--maybe similar to the way the bottom of all the Earth's oceans are 40 F.) but there are megatons of H2O vapor in its atmosphere, but might be hard to condense out, I'm not sure, keeping my eyes open for more info about that.
As far as I know, Venus doesn't have water vapor, just a CO2/sulphuric acid atmosphere. No doubt all five Keplerian planets are tidally locked. Kepler 444f, though, being the farthest, may not have a 1:1 tidal lock like our moon but a 2:3 lock like Mercury, nearly all of which is in sun at one time or other. The nearest two(?) Keplerian planets may always present the same face to their star. They may have frozen volatile deposits in perpetual darkness.
Yes, and they might be pretty thick--miles, maybe, maybe even hundreds of miles! Anyhow I finally got back to the science dept at the library and found out some things! Venus's atmosphere has about 30 parts per million of H2O. If it were by WEIGHT, that would come to over an inch depth of H2O. But since it's by molecular count, it would be less than that, since H2O weight is only 18 while CO2 weighs 44; so there's probably like a third to half an inch of water in the column of air above any point on Venus's surface. It would still amount to like 50 tons per acre, so it's a lot, certainly enough to support a large population if--IF--you could condense it out of the atmosphere as well as deal with the extreme heat and pressure on Venus.
And I found out that there are at least 6 galaxies within 30 million light years (which I was interested in because I (supposedly conservatively) projected that we could travel through intergalactic space at 1/30 of the speed of light, which would get us 30 MLY away within a billion years, which is maybe in the conservative ballpark of the lead time head start alien civilizations have had on us. SO I conclude that they (aliens from other galaxies) are all over the place, by the trillions in our galaxy and probably by the thousands in or observing our Solar System and Earth. All benevolent, can you believe that? Just as we ourselves may become after a few million more years of evolution although I will say too that our wars are not necessarily proof of malevolence but of bad economics, is my theory like Germany invaded Russia for land, but if they had had a great economic system they could have solved their unemployment problem peacefully.
Also, that book that listed 6 galaxies within 30 MLY didn't say this, but I think they were only counting LARGE galaxies (defined as over a billion solar masses?), and there are many more smaller galaxies nearby, even as close as 40,000 LY!!!!???? which must be just little dwarf fragmentary things on the fringes of the Milky Way, probably to be soon swallowed up by it.
According to one terraforming scheme, bacteria introduced into the Venusian atmosphere would split CO2, using up the carbon as they proliferate and releasing vast amounts of O2, which would be combined with H imported from the jovians to form water--oceans of it.
As for aliens from other galaxies (including Andromeda) coming to our Milky Way, don't you think our galaxy has enough indigenous civilizations to "fill" it? Assuming a lot remains to be done in our galaxy--you've seen my book on ET manipulation of Earth's history--wouldn't going to another mostly have to wait?
Interesting to think about. I worry about forming oceans on Venus. The elimination of the excess CO2 would be replaced by water vapor--which is still a greenhouse gas, and because Venus is closer to the sun, it seems like you could get a planetwide temperature of say 300 F--more comfortable than 865 F but still, how do the terraformers propose to deal with all that heat and "live steam"?
Now I believe although it may seem ridiculous, that humans (and aliens) will tend to leave the Milky Way in enormous numbers long before they have filled it up. Suppose there are 10 trillion humans by say the year 5,000. That would still leave 99.999% of the Milky Way devoid of humans (e.g., of the MW's trillion solar systems, we might be settling on only 10 million of them (with an average of only 1 million on each world), but I would bet from what I know or have read of human nature, that some people--even if only say 1% of them or 100 billion, say, are going to want to take off to explore other galaxies which is silly because if you can't find what you want anywhere in the MW I truly frankly doubt that you will find it anywhere in the Universe really, but still, there's always that 1% that are always searching! Your seekers, your misfits, your dreamers....
Sort of implicit in all this is the notion that we will at some point want to start curbing our population growth rate but I can't quite see how this could come about, any ideas? This just popped into my head, probably the Intergalactic Federation has figured out rules for this by which the universe's say 100 trillion advanced (or potentially advanced) species can share the abundance of its trillion-trillion solar systems with plenitude for all for the next trillion years....I love large numbers!
Always great to see your comments, progrev! Any terraforming of Venus would begin by reducing the incoming solar heat, by about 50%. THEN introduce bacteria and later, hydrogen to combine with O2 to form water. It would be tough to shield Venus from solar heat. Terraformers could put opaque gas or "sunshades" in orbit around the planet. But the catch is, Venusian gravity would bunch it up into a thin ring on its equatorial plane like Saturn's rings. There wouldn't be extensive shading, unless the devices were "smart," utilizing solar energy to counteract Venusian gravity and stay in place.
Overpopulation will be solved after the establishment of a new regime, preferably globally. You've seen my writings. :) China can address the problem now and not via our form of government. A Wholist regime which can ensure maximum emphasis on space can deal with a lot of other issues too. Of course there could be exploratory missions to other galaxies.
Yes interesting. I imagine that the engines needed to keep the Venus sunshades from "bunching up" might not have to be too powerful, I mean they might need only a minor fraction of the solar energy that falls on them. But the other big problem on Venus is how would they cope with the terrific crushing atmospheric pressure? However, my impression from what I've read about deep-sea diving and exploration is that the human body can accommodate to such pressures as are found thousands of feet down if done gradually and with a great deal of experienced know-how.
Also I seemed to be mistaken in an earlier post about escape velocity, I thought it was proportional to the planet's surface gravity times its radius; but I think it must be more like sg x the square root of the radius, and the planet's rate of rotation also plays a role, but I have not found the formula for all this, I was just comparing Venus and Saturn, which have the same surface gravity but of course very different escape velocities!
I think the key to lowering the pressure is lowering the temperature. Right now the pressure is very high, about 90bar, because the intense heat cooks all volatiles into the atmosphere. If Venus could be cooled, a lot of gas would be absorbed by the ground. Also, if bacteria/plants could begin growing there, a lot of atmospheric carbon would become part of the biomass.
okay, I can see how that might work. A lot of things to think about like if any substantial fraction of the atmospheric CO2 were to convert to biomass, like say even a few bars, you know that would be a phenomenal quantity of biomass, the trees would have to be thousands lf feet tall (I think, do you agree?) and what is also striking tome is the possibility that due to the intensity of the solar radiation 3 times that which we get on Earth, the light could penetrate far deeper into the foliage (it would help if the leaves were semitranslucent or feathery like the pepper or jacaranda trees) to let more light pass through. So here I am getting beautiful imaginations of how Venus might develop, and that really is much of what I like about the prospect of Space travel, all the different worlds' environments. I guess I never told you I started up a new website last year, spacedreams.net, because I've never had time to do much with it but I hoped for it to be a place where people could organize to build their diverse visions of travel and settlement throughout the Solar System.
OOOPS I just revisited my spacedreams website for the first time in 6 or 8 months and found out that it's spacedreams.ORG, not net!
Hi progrev! Always great to see your comments. Assuming the CO2 inventory of Venus is comparable to Earth's, trees the same size should suffice for removal of CO2 from the atmosphere (although slightly lower Venusian gravity would cause trees to grow taller). PROVIDED of course, trees and other plants are as numerous on venus as they are here.
Venus gets 90% more insolation than we do (not treble) and terraforming would require it be reduced by about 50% by shading. (initially even more if possible to cool the planet faster).
Thanks for the news about spacedreams.org. I've dreamed about introducing crocodiles to a terraformed Venus but no birds or mammals. In that scenario, the crocs would gradually radiate into terrestrial niches, in the process becoming more and more dinosaur-like, until Venus becomes like the earth during the Mesozoic. But the dinosaurs like trees would grow even larger!
Great! One question is that by terraforming, how similar to Earth do you mean it to be? I would consider it terraforming if even only at high latitudes and mountains would temperatures drop to say 80 F, while still Earth-possible temps of 100-130 F could be more widespread and 150-200 F might characterize half the planet, for example. If you'll accept this concept of terraforming, then I believe that myriad really exotic and strange new species could evolve or be created to flourish on Venus, it would be interesting to research which of Earth's existing species could best thrive at temps of 130-150-170-190, etc.
But if even just 1 bar of Venus's CO2 were to convert to biomass (while the rest recombined with the rocks), that would be 100 times or 300 times or something like that as much CO2 as now exists in Earth's atmosphere, I ought to know that but I assumed that the environmentalists' .350 organization means that CO2 should be 0.35% of Earth's air, I should check that out, while the 1 bar on Venus is nearly 100% CO2, right?
Your vision for crocs on Venus is great, I will try to find time to write it up on my website as really the first "spacedream" there that's not my own! If that's okay with you. (Or I could let you write it up there yourself if you wish.) You might write a sci-fi story about it and copyright it. But you know, Venus is an enormous planet, so even if there are no birds or mammals where your crocs are, there should be other places on Venus for them, right?
I'd prefer a planetwide temperature of about 80-110 F, with only a limited area a little hotter. :) Not many sophisticated organisms can take heat of 130 F or higher, and we'll have to initially populate Venus with earthly organisms. Even on Earth many animals need heat dumping adaptations or behaviors.
We already know of extremophiles which live in hot springs, but they're simple organisms.
CO2 is the major component of the Venusian atmosphere, but there's also a lot of sulphur dioxide, so I don't know, off the top of my head, how close the CO2 is to 100%.
Feel free to write about my scenario involving crocs on a terraformed Venus, just give me proper attribution. :) Btw see my Dinosaur Home blog piece "Boverisuchis and the Abortive Dinosaur Comeback" (just google it). I was thinking of enabling crocs to radiate into terrestrial niches on a terraformed Venus, without competition from mammals and birds, which prevents it now, on Earth. Croc radiations probably would, in time, give rise to an Age of Dinosaurs on Venus. Due to slightly lower Venusian gravity, the dinosaurs would get even bigger than earthly ones did.
Very interesting, lots to think about! Just some initial thoughts are like what would the crocs eat on Venus, could they evolve into birds and mammals like they did on Earth, could they evolve to pterosaurs, and could they evolve to a level of intelligence where they would create a civilization? And how well established is the relationship between gravity and maximum size, like is there room for possibly going way outside historical precedent with this, like perhaps in a marine environment crocs could evolve to be bigger than whales, for example? Now then also I want to interact. Why cannot we interact with crocodiles such as through games or training for various tasks or adopting them as pets? I was amazed a few months ago to see online video of a park in Florida I think it was (btw, are you drawing a big distinction between crocodiles and alligators or will both or either of them do?) where people get on a little boat, row out into the swamp, hand out marshmallows and the crocs or gators I can't remember which come up and carefully eat the marshmallows out of their hands!! It proves that gators or crocs have morals and know right from wrong?
According to my scenario, crocs would be introduced after a terraformed Venus acquires large bodies of water in which fish (along with molluscs, some amphibians etc) are allowed to proliferate first. In addition, herbivorous lizards such as iguanas (and tortoises) would make up the land fauna, amidst Venusian forests and grasslands. Based on Earth history, crocs wouldn't evolve into birds or mammals but would converge with theropod dinosaurs at first. Later they'd radiate into herbivorous niches, converging with sauropods, stegosaurs, ornithopods etc. The Age of Dinosaurs reborn on Earth's twin sister. :)
Some crocs might also evolve into deep sea predators, again just like on Earth during the Jurassic. Pterosaurs are also possible.
I've heard of tame NILE crocodiles in the Paga pond in Ghana (generally alligators are less aggressive). But I was thinking in terms of letting nature take its course, creating a spectacular scientific (and tourist) attraction of the far distant future (even if the creatures are ferocious).
Oh btw I neglected to mention that terraforming would involve more than just shading (and introducing hydrogen and life). Unless the speed of Venusian rotation can be speeded up considerably, there would also have to be mirrors, to reflect sunlight onto the night side. In the absence of a strong greenhouse effect, following a vast reduction of greenhouse CO2, the nights would become too cold--unless a system of mirrors turns the night into day. Maybe the shades can be programmed to act as mirrors, as soon as they pass over to the night side. They'd have to go to a higher altitude, or above the Venusian poles to avoid being shaded themselves and catch sunlight to reflect back down on the planet.
Hi Tim--I'm finally getting back into this after being distracted with other projects for a few weeks! I'll try to update my spacedreams website soon to include more on your Venusian terraforming ideas. Here are a few more questions I had (1) would it be possible or a good idea to try to speed up evolution through increasing mutations by radiation or even chemicals, or by manipulating DNA? (2) or are you patiently projecting this all to happen over periods as long as say a couple hundred million years? Patience is a virtue yes but I can hardly wait that long to see dinosaurs! (3) grasslands, this I didn't know. I thought grasses evolved more recently. Do you know any more about that offhand, I probably should research it myself but usually when I've read about dinosaurs there are no angiosperms I think they're called and grasses came later still? Tyrannosaurus rex surrounded by cherry trees and all? It's a beautiful image at least! (4) Converge? Did crocodiles converge with the dinosaurs? How could that happen? (5) Yes, this matter of the temperature differences between Venus's day and nightsides should depend on the amount of greenhouse gases and such mirrors might be needed although another possibility I like would be mass migrations--the dinos could walk down the mountain slopes overnight to lower elevations where the temps could be 50-100 F warmer than in the highlands; although such mountainous terrain only occupies a few million square miles on Venus, but that's still a lot... (6) there is also the question of seasonality. Venus's axis has no tilt, but seasons could be created by moving shields and mirrors. But maybe seasons were not important for dinosaurs? (7) similarly to the difference between day and nighttime temps is the difference between pole and equator. If there's too little greenhouse gas to keep the nights from turning cold, then there may also be too little to keep the high latitudes from getting too cold while the equatorial regions would be too hot.
Good to hear from you again Roger, though I was watching on the newest thread.
I don't like the idea of using radiation to speed up evolution, though genetic engineering might speed up the process. But strong selection pressure would lead to evolution which is rapid in geological terms.
Angiosperms had evolved by Cretaceous times though grass took longer, until the cenozoic, or perhaps late Cretaceous in places.
In my scenario, crocodiles would converge with dinosaurs, or become steadily more dinosaur-like, if they had plenty of land prey and no competition for top land hunter niche from more advanced (warm blooded) mammals or birds. Nothing could stop them from venturing onto land and evolving the means to prey on ground dwelling iguanas and other cold blooded creatures (introduced before them). In the early phases, they'd resemble the early Cenozoic Boverisuchus, then become even more theropod like. Eventually they'd takeover herbivorous niches too, becoming like sauropods, stegosaurs etc. The Age of Dinosaurs reborn.
In theory a system of mirrors and shades would prevent/mitigate temperature extremes e.g. the lower latitudes would be most heavily shaded in daytime. I'm not sure the rotation rate of Venus could be speeded up, which would help a lot.
Hi Tim, I'll soon respond at greater length when I've at least got the rough draft of this concept up on my website; but first I wanted to get back to this question of what is your time frame for this? How long would it take to terraform Venus, and then for crocs to converge to dinosaurs? Are we talking tens of thousands or hundreds of millions of years? But even if it's mere tens of thousands, I think that at the rate technology is advancing, from horse and buggy in the late 1700s to moonrockets in the late 1900s, doubling every hundred years, say, that by 12,000 AD we MIGHT be able to do something about Venus's rate of rotation although this might really be more a matter of sociopoliticoeconomic GROWTH rather than technological INVENTION.
Hi Roger. It might take a few centuries to terraform Venus. Even if we rely on purely natural evolution, the croc to dino transition wouldn't take HUNDREDS of millions of years. Maybe a few million to have the first theropod-like dinosaur, and another 30 million for most of the rest. On Earth, the first dinosaur appeared around 231 million years ago. By about 200 million years ago, there were already sauropods and the first ornithiscians.
Hi Tim--I finally hopefully got your terraforming Venus idea written up at spacedreams.org (click on "hot worlds" and scroll down to the Venus sections). Let me know of any changes I should make, I suppose there might be quite a few but that's okay! I put a list of a few of my favorite dinosaurs in the title but maybe you could suggest a better list, it's been so long since I've read much about dinos, and I just remember brachiosaurus as being the biggest, is that still true? Just now I noticed that I failed to include your answers about the time spans required, so I'll fix that soon along with any other changes you want. Also I'd like to add something about the possibly larger size of Venusian living things evolving due to the lower gravity.
Also I had another idea, as an alternative to a few gigantic shields (I just noticed too that you call them shades--should I change that?), how about a billion or so smaller shields/mirrors each up to a thousand feet across? Might be easier to construct and place in orbit? Also I had this thought, that since Venus's rate of rotation is so slow, there will be very little tendency for shields to drift into equatorial orbits, do you think? I just had this thought and haven't had time to really think it through.
Oh and I also wanted to check back with you on that planet you mentioned that was half Earth's diameter but had 3 times its gravity or something like that? Can you find that reference again? It seemed to me that it would have to be made of gold or something, which would be wonderful, I love gold not for its monetary value but because it's so heavy, beautiful, untarnishable, malleable and ductile, etc.
Hi Roger, thanks for the spacedreams info, I'll check it.
Brachiosaurus is no longer considered the biggest dinosaur. Sauroposeidon and Argentinosaurus appear to have been larger. Recently, though, it was suggested that the truly enormous size of Amphicoelias fragillimus (known only from a single dorsal vertebra, long lost) is wrong, due to an error in recording the size of the single lost element.
OK a large number of smaller shades and mirrors instead of a few big ones would be fine. I sure hope slow Venusian rotation reduces the tendency of orbiting things to bunch up in Venus's equatorial plane. In fact, if that's true we might not even need "smart" shades, with the ability to avoid this or anything artificial for shading. Just inject some dark gas or particles high above the atmosphere. I don't recall any planet with half our diameter but 3x our gravity. Sounds impossible.
Post a Comment
<< Home