Venus without sulphur. - New teraforming approach

chat · 2004-09-24 16:06:03

The cloud system on Venus relies on sulphur.
If you remove the sulphur the clouds dissapear.

If you could remove all the sulphur from the clouds, would it make an impact on the temperature of Venus?

And would that temperature drop be enough to allow machines on the surface?

This might be a new approach in the teraforming process at Venus.

Or simply another step.

atomoid · 2004-09-24 19:55:41

yeah, genetically engineered sulfur-fixing bacteria swarm Venus' atmosphere and with a little luck, might even the overall energy balance. I dont know if all the CO2 is signifficant or not.?

Regardless, you would still have to worry about that year-long day in the punishing sunlight heating things up much more than any deep-desert scenario imaginable on Earth. Unless we can make machines to survive in this, well still need some sort of way to intercept all that incoming sunlight, whether it be reflective clouds or a huge shade structure.

chat · 2004-09-25 03:42:36

atomoid,

I was thinking of a sulphur binding catalyst, but engineered bacteria might work just as well.

At least Venus only has a small amount of sulphur to lock away, so its probably something we could do.

I think the co2 will still have quite a heating effect without clouds, but not at the current rate.
Without clouds a much larger % of sunlight and heat should reflect back into space.
We might see the surface temperatures drop significantly from it.
Maybe enough to place mining and co2 fixing machines on the surface.

karov · 2004-09-27 01:05:54

The clouds indeed increase the planetary albedo, so removing them will cause bigger greenhousing. The greenhouse effect is caused mainly by three-atom molecules - CO2, H2O..., they intercept most effectivelly both the "hot" IR - 6000 C from the Sun, and the "cold" IR photons from the heated to ~300 K planetary surface. Making the thick CO2 blanket of Venus more transperant for the visible light will make the things worse down surface.

To decrease the surface tempeature without forced fridging or heat transfer, one needs to increase the planetary albedo with more clouds. If you don`t like the soleta scenario - putting huge relecting or rediecting mirror system close to the sun-venusian L1 point - than the best way is:

- introduce in the upper layers of the venusian atmosphere self-replicating floating machines powered by sun light. The machines are small ~100% reflecting mirrors ( say, 1 cm. areostats with aluminium coating of the top sides, and black 'bellies'...) That will stop almost completely the power income in the atmosphere and will reverse the greenhousing - venus will loose more heat that it receives now... You need no less than 500 years the surface to cool down to reasonable temperatures...

chat · 2004-09-27 05:08:14

karov,

Once the sulphur is gone and the clouds disappear the temperature on Venus does skyrocket upwards.

But the temperature increase should be so large that Venus cant hold onto most of its atmosphere.

Now we have Venus doing what we want with little input from us.

As soon as Venus stops itself from loosing atmosphere due to temperature drop from atmosphere loss, we simply reintroduce the clouds with a few small ice asteroids.

Back to the scenario of (if we cant cool it, lets overheat it)

karov · 2004-09-28 22:55:26

See the timescales for atmosphere loss for Hot-Jupiters.

http://lanl.arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph … 312384.pdf

The natural influx of solar energy in sulfur/cloud-free venusian atmosphere can not strip the planet off its atmosphere. Even if we apply amplified thousandsfold increase of the natural insolation, via mirror lenses on the planet - as it would have if it is as closer as to possess 2-3 DAYS orbit - its atmosphere will persists billions of years.

Decreasing its albedo, through removing the clouds, to the possible minimum will not cause the atmosphere temperature to 'sky rocket'. I think artificial hydrodynamical loss is not suitable and efficient for stripping the atmosphere. For Venus the amplyfied Jeans effect and solar wind 'pick up' is better if applied as we discussed - x-ray or UV solasers + particle accelerators acting locally on certain spot in order the orbited atmosphere material to be captured and utilized.

May be even such plasma-excavator is better for CO2 'space sequestration', than the mechanical ones ( skyhooks...), cause the mechanical means need enormous infrastructure, have low efficiency and they activity will be restricted by the slow axial rotation of Venus.

randy.c · 2004-10-31 19:52:34

If you don`t like the soleta scenario - putting huge relecting or rediecting mirror system close to the sun-venusian L1 point - than the best way is:
- introduce in the upper layers of the venusian atmosphere self-replicating floating machines powered by sun light. The machines are small ~100% reflecting mirrors ( say, 1 cm. areostats with aluminium coating of the top sides, and black 'bellies'...) That will stop almost completely the power income in the atmosphere and will reverse the greenhousing - venus will loose more heat that it receives now... You need no less than 500 years the surface to cool down to reasonable temperatures...

It certainly seems possible to build floating bubbles out of indigenous material. For instance, carbon dioxide and sufuric acid can be used to make carbon disulfiide and hydrogen. The carbon disulfide can be polymerized into thin films, see http://tinyurl.com/5rfvs .

A bubble made of a polythiene film and filled with hydrogen probably could be made to float high in the atmosphere. If polythiene were a semiconductor, then the bandgap could probably be engineered to make it reflective, or photovoltaic, or to make transistors.

A thick enough layer of reflective dumb bubbles would reduce insolation enough to cool the planet and allow the CO2 to start precipitating. There'd probably be tremendous storms generated as precipitation started, because the dark side would cool off a little sooner than the lit side. That would be a sight to see!

SpaceNut · 2004-11-22 12:15:37

The Makings Of A Breathable World

Shaun Barrett · 2004-11-27 19:12:43

Thanks SpaceNut.
That link is very interesting. I was aware of the increase in Earth's atmospheric oxygen about 2.2 billion years ago but this article explains the process in much better detail.
I hadn't considered the idea of Earth's volcanoes exuding a different mix of gases as the planet settled down into middle age, so to speak. The gradual change from predominantly H2/CO to H2O/CO2 is something I wasn't familiar with and it's solved a riddle which has been troubling me for years - i.e. since O2 producing cyanobacteria have existed in profusion since at least 3.5 billion years ago, why did it take until 2.2 billion years ago for the concentration of O2 in the atmosphere to become significant?
Answer: Different volcanic gases in the early stages maintaining a heavily reducing atmosphere.
Problem solved! Thanks again for this illuminating link - light has dawned.

srmeaney · 2005-03-19 09:56:51

If sulfur is reflecting Solar radiation from Venus and thus reducing heat absorbed by CO2, Would you get molten carbon raining from the sky if all that was left was CO2?

Planet@lien · 2005-04-07 16:38:37

Hey,

what about nanomachines??
They could break down the carbon dioxide into oxygen and water!

Planet@lien · 2005-04-07 16:56:00

Here's my terraformation:

We start by putting a huge mirror or shade in orbit. The temperature will lower to at least 500F.

Even though 500F. may be very hot, the extreme pressure on the planet would condense the C02.

The weigth of the liquid C02 will trigger earthquakes (venusquakes) and the holes will suck up the liquid C02.

With the atmosphere raining on to the surface the pressure and the heat will drop. Some of the liquid C02 will freeze into dry ice. This could be a problem. Nanomachines could be planted on the surface designed to break apart carbon dioxide molecules, the result would be oxygen and carbon. The carbon could be used for other purposes and the oxygen could be breathed! This takes care of the artificial plants needed to change the carbon dioxide to oxygen.

The atmosphere will stilll be thinning out.

Ahh... nanomachines again. Well the sulfur in the atmosphere could be broken apart with the nanos too, and the small amounts of carbon monoxide.

Now we need to get rid of the excess nitrogen in the atmosphere. We have 5 bars and we only need .77 Well i dont't really have an answer to this. maybe future humans would have to live in 5.23 bars of pressure. I'm not even sure if that is possible i'll have to do a little research.

Now.... we still have a 233 day long day. Easily fixed with spaceships placed in orbit magnetically bonded to Venus's core. The orbit of the ships would be slightly angled so we could have seasons. The faster orbit will trigger a van allen belt.

More soon to come.....

Planet@lien · 2005-04-07 17:23:59

Alright here we go.

So far we have: A breatheable atmosphere (with exception of 4 extra bars of pressure).
A 24 hour long day.
A van allen belt for solar storm protection.
A comfortable temperature range.

So we need an ozone layer and water.

The water problem can be solved easily, nanomachines again
using nanomachines, dig the hydrates out of the ground and turn them into water molecules. The remaining water that nanos couldn't provide would be gotten from a classical resource. Use a few very close comets or one of the moons of Jupiter or Saturn. We don't want to lose any of the atmosphere into space. So we break off chunks of the comet/asteroid and let a little loose at a time. Then we now have 70% water on Venus's surface.

we now have a very cold planet. We need to take a large piece off the solar mirror/shade so the temperature range is normal.

Now we need an ozone layer, now we use...... You guess? and assemble the long chain ozone molecule and realease it. A large ozone layer would begin to form. Note: I do not know how the ozone layer works or if my theory would work.

Now we have a habitable Venus!!

Hope you liked it!

This has been a report from The 11 year old astronomany buff!

srmeaney · 2005-04-07 19:10:58

Let's just bombard the Venusian atmosphere with antimatter and see what happens.

Planet@lien · 2005-04-08 23:41:10

that would be interesting.....

but we dont even know if antimatter exists right now although it probably does...

Grypd · 2005-04-09 04:58:07

we do know it exists we can make antiprotons in our largest colliders but it is horribly expensive to make and we really cannot store it.

The best way to solve Venus tempatures is to build a large enough soletta that the sun is reduced on reaching the planet it then goes we can use the soletta to power things on the planet.

Of course we are very far from the capability of building so large a soletta

Austin Stanley · 2005-04-14 03:33:22

I thought I covered that in another thread. You could not possibly produce enough anti-matter to eliminate all the CO2 or sulphur in Venus's atmosphere it would take the entire out put of the sun for several thousand years to acomplish such a task. Nor can you selectivly chose to eliminate just the sulphur via such method. It would take much less energy to simply eject the stuff from the planet. I like the idea of heating the planet up until CO2 starts to reach escape velocity, though I imagine this would take quite a while, and you would lose what little water vapor remains

As for all this Drexlerian nanotechnology, see my response in the other thread. The chemical relam realy doesn't work like that. And as much as I like the ideas of "grey goo" and "miricale/utility foam" I'm afriad such machines are quite beyond the relm of plausibility.

chat · 2005-04-14 05:16:43

Austin Stanley,

I agree that the escape velocity of co2 is a good tool at Venus.

No matter how you attempt to heat Venus to get co2 to escape its still going to be expensive and a lengthy process.

As you pointed out it will also remove what little water vapor exists.

With atmosphere dumping, sulphur fixing, co2 fixing and hydrogen mining on Venus and a few hundred years it has possibilities.

I've also toyed with the idea of adding super greenhouse gasses to Venus, but getting to the escape velocity of co2 is tough, and as soon as you do the steady decrease in bar pressure halts the proces

SpaceNut · 2005-05-06 05:46:42

Rather adding to a thread that has not been active in a while and the fact that it would probably bust.
Well it is not a terraforming idea per say but could lead the way.
To conquer Venus, try a plane with a brain
We talked of floating islands but what about using a solar powered plane?

Article does go into insitu use , nasa budget wows and the venus express modeled after the ever popular Mars express but that all aside worth the read.

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#1 2004-09-24 16:06:03

Re: Venus without sulphur. - New teraforming approach

#2 2004-09-24 19:55:41

Re: Venus without sulphur. - New teraforming approach

#3 2004-09-25 03:42:36

Re: Venus without sulphur. - New teraforming approach

#4 2004-09-27 01:05:54

Re: Venus without sulphur. - New teraforming approach

#5 2004-09-27 05:08:14

Re: Venus without sulphur. - New teraforming approach

#6 2004-09-28 22:55:26

Re: Venus without sulphur. - New teraforming approach

#7 2004-10-31 19:52:34

Re: Venus without sulphur. - New teraforming approach

#8 2004-11-22 12:15:37

Re: Venus without sulphur. - New teraforming approach

#9 2004-11-27 19:12:43

Re: Venus without sulphur. - New teraforming approach

#10 2005-03-19 09:56:51

Re: Venus without sulphur. - New teraforming approach

#11 2005-04-07 16:38:37

Re: Venus without sulphur. - New teraforming approach

#12 2005-04-07 16:56:00

Re: Venus without sulphur. - New teraforming approach

#13 2005-04-07 17:23:59

Re: Venus without sulphur. - New teraforming approach

#14 2005-04-07 19:10:58

Re: Venus without sulphur. - New teraforming approach

#15 2005-04-08 23:41:10

Re: Venus without sulphur. - New teraforming approach

#16 2005-04-09 04:58:07

Re: Venus without sulphur. - New teraforming approach

#17 2005-04-14 03:33:22

Re: Venus without sulphur. - New teraforming approach

#18 2005-04-14 05:16:43

Re: Venus without sulphur. - New teraforming approach

#19 2005-05-06 05:46:42

Re: Venus without sulphur. - New teraforming approach

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