If Earth Were In Venus's Orbit It Would Remain Habitable

phys.org...

essentially factors other than distance of orbit from parent Star greatly influence habitability. rate of rotation for one. Oceans for another. Tidal stresses. in fact there are all sorts of factors that determine if a planet or moon remains habitable.

The study used computer simulations to show that a slowly rotating planet with the same atmospheric composition, mass, and radius of the Earth could potentially be habitable even at Venus' distance from the Sun. Under the typical boundaries of a habitable zone, Venus is situated closer to the Sun than the inner edge of the zone. In the study, the simulated planet received almost twice as much radiation as the actual Earth did, and yet the surface temperature was cool enough for life to thrive due to the shielding clouds.

this article is about rotation and convection cells.

"Rotation can have a huge effect, and lots of planets that we previously thought were definitely not habitable now can be considered as candidates," says Dorian Abbot of the University of Chicago, and a co-author on the paper.

our own dead lifeless moon has a warm squishy core thanks to tidal stresses. the gravitational tugging and rise and falling keep the moon's core either molten like the core or sticky plastic like the mantle of earth.

a reply to: stormbringer1701

This is merely a simulation and probably wrong, it does not take into account internal planetary heat either.
Venus probably had ocean's at the earliest point and may have been cooler but even then they were boiling, it has two continent's and large ocean basins and is techtonically active with a very similar form but slightly smaller than the earth.

It's ocean's long ago boiled away into the atmosphere, it rains all the time but the rain is sulphuric acid and never reaches the ground.

On it's highest mountains it snow's but that snow is a rare metal not water and the surface pressure is similar to the bottom of the pacific with the atmospheric gas so dense it bend's light like a fluid, it rotate's so that the sun if visible would rise in the west (the only planet in the solar system to do so and a matter of much speculation including the possibility it was the victim of a planetary collision, the techtonic's on earth where once thought to be related to us having a moon so when they discovered venus had them?, the day is about six months long).

Venus is where the earth may be in about 4.5 billion years and if we had a method of traveling through time the ablated burned earth trying to escape in this manner from the outer atmosphere of the expanding devouring sun which had started to fuse helium etc would probably be near identical to venus today but the earth today is larger and cooler, still that is a scary sci fi scenario for some one, add the idea in that sci fi book of a group of survivors fleeing to the earth to start the whole closed cycle over again.

Cool Thread but I think without taking into account planatery heat from it's core and the innability to radiate it with the same efficiancy over time the Earth would cook itself in that orbit to become a slightly larger version of venus.

that would really be awesome if Venus and Mars were more similar to Earth than we think

originally posted by: LABTECH767
a reply to: stormbringer1701

This is merely a simulation and probably wrong, it does not take into account internal planetary heat either.
Venus probably had ocean's at the earliest point and may have been cooler but even then they were boiling, it has two continent's and large ocean basins and is techtonically active with a very similar form but slightly smaller than the earth.


Cool Thread but I think without taking into account planatery heat from it's core and the inability to radiate it with the same efficiancy over time the Earth would cook itself in that orbit to become a slightly larger version of venus.

the point is that the habitability of exo-planets is more complicated than its nearness to a star. therefore judging a planet's habitability or the habitability zone of a star with the minimal amount of data we can currently acquire is far from definitive. so i think that your critique isn't really at odds with either the spirit of the article or my initial comments on it.

originally posted by: blacktie
that would really be awesome if Venus and Mars were more similar to Earth than we think

actually both are actually more habitable that is generally assumed for a variety of reasons. Mar's biggest hit on habitability isn't it's atmosphere or its temperature range. it's the gravity.

Venus, though at first glance being a severe problem in terms of terraformation or in colonization actually has a few surprises. like the ease with which a huge balloon colony could be established with little engineering lead time. the temperature in the upper atmosphere as well as the pressure are "shirt sleeve" already (minus the acid. and breathability issue). the good news; -oxygen and nitrogen would naturally float to the top meaning a balloon filled with oxygen/nitrogen could serve as the lifting device and the breathable air for a floating colony about 30KM above the hellish surface.

You should amend your title, because actually in order for the Earth to remain habitable, according to your source article, it would only be that way IF it rotated slower (had a much longer day) than it has at present.

From your article:

If, on the other hand, the planet is a slow rotator, then the Hadley cells can expand to encompass the entire world. This is because the atmospheric circulation is enhanced due to the difference in temperature between the day and night side of the planet. The days and nights are very long, so that the half of the planet that is bathed in light from the star has plenty of time to soak up the Sun. In contrast, the night side of the planet is much cooler, as it has been shaded from the star for some time.

If the Earth were to move into the same orbit as Venus with the rotation rate it has (almost 24 hours), the Hadley cells would still be divided up like they are now. The Earth would need to slow it's spin down quite a bit.

So in reality, no, Earth would not be habitable.

However, it is possible that there might be planets that do have a slower rate that could meet the conditions they are talking about in the article out there.

eh the server says the original post is over 4 hours old so i cannot edit it. that's wrong. but there is nothing i can do.

a reply to: stormbringer1701

the possibilities are staggering

I like to think about whats possible there

originally posted by: stormbringer1701
eh the server says the original post is over 4 hours old so i cannot edit it. that's wrong. but there is nothing i can do.

Ah, the infamous 4 hour timer.

Well a mod could do it for you, but it's just a small point really.

Actually, over the years as we learn of more and more exoplanets, and as computer models get better, they are finding all sorts of situations in which a planet might be able to harbor life, where as before we thought it most likely impossible.

There's one that is tidally locked with it's star, and before we thought that would make it impossible, but newer computer models suggest sort of the same thing for it:

The extremely cold, dark side would attract the hot air from the day side, helping keep temps down, and that the temps near the day/night line would be actually tolerable.

However: the winds might be a constant gale force.....so expect life that evolved to put up with winds like that.

a reply to: stormbringer1701

True and if Venus was in the orbit of Mars it may be at habitable temperature's due to the very thick atmosphere, I agree with that point absolutely, it is a shame that it is beyond our capability to terraform Venus, even if we could somehow reduse radiation of the planet by placing orbital screen's of some kind the atmosphere and planatery crust need to radiate the excessive heat they have and that would take a very long time indeed, it would be far easier to terraform Mars, of course we still can not control our own ecologically imbalanced behaviour on this planet.

a reply to: stormbringer1701

what if venus high surface temp is from internal heating and not solar.

It is hypothesized that Venus underwent some sort of global resurfacing about 300–500 million years ago...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com...

So they want to use Cern to move earth? Whats heading our way?

originally posted by: Unity_99
So they want to use Cern to move earth? Whats heading our way?

these things are hypothetical exercises. no one thinks anything is heading our way. but since we have no ideas on how to move a planet around they propose something like Cern though i must have missed that part.

in the future we may be able to build a frame or a coordinated swarm of space stations around a planet like venus with the ability to cancel gravity and inertia and move a planet around with little more difficulty than moving an old house. who knows? or we might be able to custom build planets using geometrically reproducing nano or pico scale space robots to gather and place space dust and debris. or use wormholes to add some fire (uranium, thorium, direct access portals to the interior of the sun) to the core of dead worlds.

originally posted by: bigspud
a reply to: stormbringer1701

what if venus high surface temp is from internal heating and not solar.

It is hypothesized that Venus underwent some sort of global resurfacing about 300–500 million years ago...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com...

if it is then in less than 500K years it will be cooled down to habitabile levels. but we know that the atmosphere and lack of an ocean will prevent that. however; it takes a surprisingly short amount of time for a planet to go from molten to rocky crust and liquid to solid to plastic interior like earth did. we are watching planets in planetary nebulae do it now. i mean one at this stage here or that later stage there and so on. planets form two ways. and one is stately and slow and the other is more like "whoomp! There it is!" you can have a slow particle by particle accretion or you can have a rapid gravitational coalescence.