IS VENUS INHABITED?

Grey River Argus, 15 July 1922, Page 6

IS VENUS INHABITED?

"Alimosa ’ writes: In the midst of the controversy about "Mars’’ could I ivc not speculate.as to the likelihood if life on the earth’s twin sister "Venus.’’ To us it is the most beautiful constellation, Professor T. J. J. See, of Washington, shows it in an article written by him to the 44 Sunset” in 1910, to be perhaps the most interesting. He writes: “Venus is the only planet with striking resemblance to the earth; and the kinship to our planet has been so strongly emphasised by recent discoveries that it becomes almost a certainty that Venus is an inhabited world, with all the charactcrists of our terrestial globe.” The major planets of the solar system —Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune—are all at high temperature, and largely gaseous, so that they have not yet become encrusted; consequently, life could not develop on any of the great planets in the outer parts of our system. The only region in which life could flourish is th: t of the terrestial planets, all of which are comparatively near the sun. These are Alars, The Earth, A enus, Afercury—and of these Alercury is excluded, because, like our moon, it has no sensible atmosphere. A enus, on the other hand, has an abundance of air, and plenty of water and clouds, so abundant that they almost conceal the body of the planet from our view; and, what is equally important, there is the same admirable arrangement of seasons, with alternation of day and night, as on tho earth. The physical conditions of A T enus are therefore entirely favourable to the development of life as we know it upon our globe. According to Professor Lowell, Alars is essentially a desert planet, with so little water that about the only rain falling is a kind of dew or hoar frost at night. It is evident, then, that, while the planet may be inhabited by human beings, the conditions are such as to make the maintenance of the higher forms of life extraordinarily difficult, Lowell holds that the water pro blem is always uppermost in the minds of the inhabitants of Mars; and that the canals may be vegetable bnnks along routes of irrigation, built to conduct the water from the polar to the equatorial regions of the planet. A'enus is 7600 miles in diameter. It is so covered with clouds that it reflects 77 per cent, of the sunlight falling upon it, which is an albedo or whiteness about equal to that of fresh fallen snow. Hence the great brilliance of A’enus to our sight. Its phases change with the position in tho orbit, but, when near tho maximum brightness, the aspect is always that of a fine new moon, with an intensely brilliant lustre. The aspect presented to an inhabitant of the planet—would be that of a clouded but well illuminated sky, such as we have on the earth on a cloudy day. The temperature beneath this layer of cloud should be equable and cool enough to be comfortable, though some calculations make the mean temperature on A’enus 176 degrees, as against the earth’s 80 degrees and Alars’s minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit. A'enus has no moon of sensible magnitude, and consequently the nights are of the most intense darkness. The outcome of a century of observation

was to render it almost certain that the day on A'enus has about the same length as on the earth. It had long been supposed that the earth at one time rotated in about two hours and 10 minutes, and that the rotation had been lengthened to 24 hours by the secular effects of tidal friction, as explained by Professor Sir G. 11. Darwin of Cambridge. Recent researches h:;v<suggested that Lie moon is not really a det: died part of the earth thrown off by rapid rotation, as was long supposed, but, in fact, a planet captured by the earth from space. Tho outcome of this new line of thought is to show that the terrestial day has always been of i bout the same length as at present, and that tidal friction has been much less important than was generally supposed. It has had very little effect in altering the length of the day. Moreover, from other lines of inquiry it is proved that a body of the size of A’enus ought theoretically to have a rot:.tion of about the same length as the earth.