THE PLANET VENUS.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 June 1930, Page 17 (Supplement)

THE PLANET VENUS.

IS IT HABITABLE? - •'

(By

Rev. B. Dudley,

F.R.A.8.)

There is something to be said for the belief that'Venus turns (upon its axis in the same time that it; takes to .revolve about the sun; in which case, like the planet Mercury and the moon,, it. must ever present the saffie face to its primary. Much attention has been given to this question, but astronomers are still divided in opinion about it. The planet is so far wanting in conspicuous. and permanent surface-markings that it is extremely difficult to' study the rotation of its globe. '-Were but one definite and distinct-feature visible, it would be sufficient, under telescopic scrutiny, to solve the question fdr us.

' Should the theory that the planet rotates upon its axis in the same time as it revfflves about the >un be correct, it follows' that one hemisphere must enjoy perpetual day, while the'other is'shroud-ed-in eternal darkness. Sunrise and sunset could never be known to' inhabitants of such a world.. If' the planet is populated by_ beingd' anything like us, the inhabitants must all be ..crowded within the illuminated hemisphere. ■ Being 'in such' a condition,' wrote- Sir R. S. Ball, might, if -endowed with curiosity and enterprise akin to that which characterises the inhabitants of our earth, must be occasionally tempted to dispatch exploring . expeditions from their sunny climes to discover the mysteries of their dark hemisphere, just as we send forth expeditions in the hope of solving the mysteries of our arctic and antarctic regions. , .*

Some lines of research have led many to a belief in the more rapid rotation of the planet—a rotation approximating to that of the earth. If . finally it is- proved that the axial rotation of Venus is about twenty-four hours, no other planet in the solar system so closely resembles the Earth; and it would be difficult in that case to escape the conclusion that life as we know it is running its course there as well as here.

This question of the habitability of Venus has often been discussed with keen interest, but no finality has yet been ■ reached thereon. Possibilities and probabilities have been suggested. Analogies '.have been elaborated in detail, and inferences deduced; but the truth is, wc have no sufficient evidence on» way or the other, and so caiindt .conrn to definite, conclusions. It is not safe to look upon our "own experiences' or upon the conditions prevailing here as typical of the state of affairs in other worlds. The whole planet is shut up in a perpetual vapour bath, and its condition must resemble in ' Home degree the most humid countries of the terrestia'l tropics during the- height of ’heir rainy seasons.

As someone has put- it. “everything on Venus must be dripping .wet,”. It’ there are beings anything like ourselves in it, they could never see the heavens because' of the thick clouds above their heads. The sun could seldom pierce through this dense envelope. There could be no starry nights.- • ■ ■ The phases of Venus from crescent to full and to crescent, are repeated every 584 days, and every eight years she returns to the same relative position with respect to the earth. In a short time (the.planet being seen as a thin crescent) the unilluminated part ■of the globe —the part turned from the sun —will appear in the telescope as a faint golden-tiiited disc, rather brighter than the background of sky.; and owing to irradiation (an optical phenomenon by which a bright or white object appears larger than a dark one of the same size), will seem to be of smaller curvature than the illuminated part, as if belonging to another and- tinier world, exactly similar to the appearance of the “old moon in the young moon’s arms,” such as is witnessed when the moon is a slender crescent, and yet the rest of her globe can be faintly seen. The discovery of the phases of this planet was one of the first fruits of the invention of the telescope by Galileo in the year 1610. The brighter rim often seen round this dark part of Venus is due. to the gaseous envelope or atmosphere surrounding the planet seen in profile. It cannot be asserted with confidence, however, that such envelope, either in its composition or its abundance, resembles the atmosphere that enfolds the' earth.

The following story (not by any means apocryphal), as told in the language of Miss Mary Proctor, daughter of the more celebrated Richard Proctor, is worth repeating here: “An enginedriver in Virginia, whose train one evening was. running through a strip of cypress forest, had got a little behind time; so he was, as he himself put it, ‘hustling his locomotive along at a pretty good clip.’ Just as he cleared the cypress forest, the. line took a sharp turn westward, and as he made it he was startled at seeing what appeared to be another engine coming down the track (it was a single-track line) from the opposite direction. Her headlight was flaming in his eyes. “Hurriedly he reversed his engine and took his train back at full speed to a station about half a mile behind him. There he got on to a siding and waited for the other train to rush by; but nothing happened. Then he wired up the line to see if there were any specials or ‘wild engines’ in the way, but was told that the line was clear. The passengers, wondering what had happened, got out of the train and. began to ask questions, but the engine-driver was too dazed to answer. He thought of runaway engines, train-wreckers, trumps, but everything was quid round the 1 bend.

“While standing on the platform wondering if it was safe to resume the ’journey, he happened to glance westward across a clearing. There was the headlight shining as brightly as eyer; e but, a3’ the man expressed it, ‘the light was as serene and steady as you please,’ In a momenta he realised that it was the planet Venus (low-down on the horizon) that'he had be«ri dodging. He instantly gave the signal that he was ready to go ahead, without a hint as to the cause of his alarm; ‘for,’ aaid he ..afterwards, ‘if it had got around that I had side-tracked 'to let the'evening.star by..l’d never h'hve heard the, end. of it ’ ” : -