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Chapter 11: Problem 57

In the classic Ray Bradbury science-fiction story "All Summer in a Day, "human colonists on Venus are subjected to con-tinuous rainfall except for one day every few years when the clouds part and the Sun comes out for an hour or so. Discuss how our understanding of Venus's atmosphere has evolved since this story was first published in \(1954 .\)

Short Answer

Expert verified
Since the publication of Bradbury’s oeuvre in 1954, our understanding of Venus's weather and atmospheric conditions has significantly evolved. Thanks to the advent of space exploration and climate-science technologies, we now understand that Venus' atmosphere is composed mainly of carbon dioxide with clouds of sulfuric acid, presenting a harsh and inhospitable environment contrary to that depicted in 'All Summer in a Day.'

Step by step solution

01

Understanding the Context

First, we will need to understand the scientific and technological context of the period when Bradbury wrote his story. In 1954, our understanding about Venus's atmosphere was still very limited. From Earth's viewpoint, Venus was always shrouded in clouds with visible sunlight, hence Bradbury’s depiction of Venus as a place of continuous rainfall.
02

Early Space Exploration

In the subsequent years, with the advent of space exploration technologies, humans were able to send space probes to Venus, from Soviet Union’s Venera Series to NASA's Mariner series since the early 1960s. Data returned from these earlier missions started to sketch a more accurate picture of Venus's atmosphere.
03

Advanced Study of Venus’s Atmosphere

With the help of sophisticated probes like Venera and Mariner program, we learned that Venus's atmosphere is indeed very thick, consisting mainly of carbon dioxide and also have clouds, but these were not composed of water but of sulfuric acid. This information contradicts the environment depicted in Bradbury's work.
04

Current understanding

Today, we are further equipped with advanced understanding due to continuous exploration and research. We now know Venus’s atmosphere to be hostile: extreme temperatures, high pressure, and acid droplets are hostile to human life and make the concept of raining all the time unlikely. We still haven't discovered any sunny breaks in the cloud cover as Bradbury mentioned.

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Most popular questions from this chapter

Why is it best to view Mars near opposition? Why are some oppositions better than others?

A hypothetical planet has an atmosphere that is opaque to visible light but transparent to infrared radiation. How would this affect the planet's surface temperature? Contrast and compare this hypothetical planet's atmosphere with the greenhouse effect in Venus's atmosphere.

(a) Suppose you have a telescope with an angular resolution of 1 arcsec. What is the size (in kilometers) of the smallest feature you could have seen on the Martian surface during the opposition of 2005 , when Mars was \(0.464\) AU from Earth? (b) Suppose you had access to the Hubble Space Telescope, which has an angular resolution of \(0.1\) arcsec. What is the size (in kilometers) of the smallest feature you could have seen on Mars with the HST during the 2005 opnosition?

On Mars, the difference in elevation between the highest point (the summit of Olympus Mons) and the lowest point (the bottom of the Hellas Planitia basin) is \(30 \mathrm{~km}\). On Earth, the corresponding elevation difference (from the peak of Mount Everest to the bottom of the deepest ocean) is only \(20 \mathrm{~km}\). Discuss why the maximum elevation difference is so much greater on Mars.

If you could examine rock samples from the surface of Venus, would you expect them to be the same as rock samples from Earth? Would you expect to find igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks like those found on Earth (see Section 9-3)? Explain your answers.
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