From: EvMick@aol.com
Date: Tue Feb 16 1999 - 15:03:29 MST
An Author I enjoy...James T. Hogan...has some interesting stuff on his web
site. Of course it doesn't follow the conventional wisdom. Naturally it's
totally bogus....right?
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VELIKOVSKY'S IDEAS AGAIN Posted April 14, 1998
In September last year (BB ARCHIVES - CATASTROPHISM, September 13, 1997) I
posted a note on the work of the shamefully misrepresented work of Immanuel
Velikovsky, where I commented that the evidence continues to accumulate that
Venus is a young planet. This is despite the efforts of the Orthodoxy to
select and twist the data to conform to the requirements of traditional
gradualist theories, and ignore everything that won't. A number of people have
been in touch to ask for more about what this evidence is--hard, scientific
evidence, as opposed to interpretations of ancient myths and writings. Here,
then, is a brief summary:
Temperature and excess heat.
The surface temperature of 750 deg K revealed by space probes in the 1960s
came as a great surprise to astronomers, who had expected something modestly
higher than Earth's, corresponding to Venus's smaller distance to the sun.
Such a figure is fully consistent, however, with the theory of a recent origin
for Venus and had been predicted on this basis, but was dismissed as a "lucky
guess."
The conventional response is to explain Venus's temperature as the result of a
"runaway greenhouse effect." This falls down for a number of reasons:
•With surface pressure 90 times and mass 75 times Earth's, the atmosphere of
Venus has thermal properties comparable to an ocean 3,000 feet deep.
Penetration of solar energy is nowhere near sufficient to produce appreciable
heating to any depth. Further, the high albedo (reflectance), means that only
a minor portion of incident energy gets past the cloud tops to begin with.
Heating at the base of the atmosphere due to solar input alone would be around
6 deg C above freezing. •Carbon dioxide, the major constituent of the
atmosphere, is incapable of producing the postulated runaway on its own. It
would require an additional component to "close" the critical 25 %
transparency window that permits reradiation back into space at thermal
wavelengths. Water vapor, the primary candidate, is conspicuously absent.
Methane is a possibility, but puts proponents in the position of confirming
another of Velikovsky's predictions (an atmosphere would be rich in
hydrocarbon gases derived from the atmosphere of Jupiter) that was ridiculed
when first put forward. Even so, the problem remains that solar penetration is
inadequate for any runaway to happen. •Probably the most damning for the
greenhouse theory is the data from all of the US and Russian probes showing
that the thermal gradient of the atmosphere is from base to cloud tops, i.e.
the heat source is at the bottom, not outside. In short, the claims that have
been made publicly notwithstanding, the planet is not in thermal equilibrium.
According to the probe data, the emitted surface infrared flux is 40 times
more than enters as sunlight. About 2 percent of the heat at the surface can
be attributed to solar input. Overall, Venus emits 15 percent more energy than
it receives from the sun, implying a heat output 10,000 times greater than
Earth's. Although Venus rotates 243 times more slowly than Earth (58-day dark
period), nightside temperatures are slightly higher than on the day
side--contradicting the notion that the sun is the heat source. Rigorous
mathematical modeling by the thermodynamicist George R. Talbott showed that
given an incandescent state 3,500 years ago as the recent-origin theory
proposes, the cooling curve over that period yields a temperature today
exactly as observed. •A solar heating model predicts large-scale atmospheric
circulation in a north-south direction, transporting heat from the equator to
the poles, which should be highly pronounced in view of the planet's slow
rotation. Probe data show no such circulation. On the contrary, the entire
atmosphere is in a state of super east-west rotation 100 times faster than the
surface speed (5 m.p.h equatorial) at all latitudes. (Note. This enormous
super-rotation of the atmosphere is consistent with the idea of evolution from
a giant comet-like body, whose tail wrapped around the planet gravitationally
as Venus slowed into its present orbit, and is still dissipating angular
momentum.)
Atmospheric Composition
Argon isotope ratios: Argon 36 is primordial. Proportion should be comparable
to Earths' if Venus is of comparable age. In fact, it is 300-500 times higher.
Argon 40 is a decay product of Potassium 40, and again should be represented
comparably if ages are similar. In fact, it is 15 times lower than Earth's.
Both differences indicate a younger age for Venus.
Carbon dioxide. For planet hot and rich in hydrocarbons, CO2 should have
decomposed to CO & O2 in billions of years. But there is little CO and no
O2--consistent with an age of a few thousand years only.
Water vapor is absent, although volcanic outgassing should have supplied
plenty on an ancient planet. The conventional answer is to hypothesize that
the water vapor was photodissociated by solar ultraviolet into oxygen which
recombined with the rocks, and hydrogen which escaped. The "gardening" of
surface rocks needed to absorb the amount of oxygen liberated over billions of
years, however, is unrealistic, and no plausible mechanism has been proposed
to induce it. Also, this theory ignores the fact that photodissociated oxygen
could be expected to recombine into high-level ozone just as it does on Earth,
blocking out the high-energy ultraviolet and terminating the process.
Sulfuric acid present in the cloud tops but not at the surface. Again, a short
life expectancy due to ultraviolet dissociation would be expected, causing
decomposition in about ten thousand years.
Motion
Retrograde rotation is not compatible with the conventional model of accretion
of the Solar System from a rotating nebular disk.
Surface
Indications consistent with the proposition of a young terrestrial-type
planet:
•No tectonic plates. 5/6 of Venus is continental crust, 1/6 is shallow basin.
Implication is that processes of major continental fracturing, moving, and
shaping have yet to occur. •The surface is dominated by volcanism in the form
of large-scale lava flows flowing up through a thin crust. Impact craters
would have long ago been obliterated if relics from activity billions of years
ago. Viscous creep rates of rock at the temperatures of Venus's surface are
such that the two main uplifted regions--almost certainly volcanic in
origin--should have disappeared if Venus is ancient. With 100,000 volcanic
formations, collapsed rivers, rising chambers, Venus has been described as the
biggest volcano in Solar System. •Absence of erosion. The surface is scoured
by superheated, dust-laden, highly corrosive winds, yet the rocks show
relatively sharp, uneroded features--certainly compared to what would be
expected after billions of years. Further, the atmosphere contains both
hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acids, which would quickly be neutralized by
contact with rocks. The combination of mechanical and chemical erosion should,
over a protracted time, have created a thick soil, or regolith, but no such
feature is found.
____________________________________________________________________________Ev
Mick
Arvin Calif
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