Venus Express press conference November 28th, Venus: a more Earth-like planetary neighbour Options

[belleraphon1]

All..

Venus Express press conference set for November 28th.

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMX1C63R8F_index_0.html

‘Venus: a more Earth-like planetary neighbour’
Latest results from Venus Express
28 November 2007, 15:00, room 137
ESA Headquarters, 8-10 rue Mario-Nikis, Paris

15:00 Introduction, by Håkan Svedhem, ESA Venus Express Project Scientist
15:07 Venus: What we knew before, by Fred Taylor, Venus Express Interdisciplinary Scientist

15:15 Temperatures in the atmosphere of Venus, by Jean-Loup Bertaux, SPICAV Principal Investigator

15:25 The dynamic atmosphere of Venus, by Giuseppe Piccioni, VIRTIS Principal Investigator

15:40 Venus’s atmosphere and the solar wind, by Stas Barabash, ASPERA Principal Investigator

15:50 Climate and evolution, by David Grinspoon, Venus Express Interdisciplinary Scientist

16:00 Conclusion, by Dmitri Titov, Venus Express Science Coordinator and VMC scientist

16:05 Questions and Answers

16:25 Individual interviews

17:30 End of event

Craig

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

Venus Express is not the first spacecraft to detect lightning. The first probes to detect lightning and thunderstorms are Venera landers.

[tedstryk]

There was always controversy surrounding that. None of the orbiters/flyby spacecraft had found anything definitive, the short lifespans of the landers, and the extreme conditions they were under, there was some uncertainty as to whether some of the charges might be related to the spacecrafts themselves.

[JRehling]

There was always controversy surrounding that. None of the orbiters/flyby spacecraft had found anything definitive, the short lifespans of the landers, and the extreme conditions they were under, there was some uncertainty as to whether some of the charges might be related to the spacecrafts themselves.

Yes, if you just follow the headlines without reading between the lines, the story on venusian lightning reads: Yes there is; No there isn't; Yes there is; No there isn't; Yes there is. Cassini's team said that either Venus has no lightning, or if it does, it's really rare or really different than Earth's. Those hedges are possibly the key: Cassini's radio and plasma wave instrument said no. VEx's magnetometer says yes. These could be reconciled if there's lightning on Venus, but something totally blocks the radio/plasma signals (or there never are any), but the magnetic field comes through. My conclusion is that that is almost certainly the case. The only alternative would be that Venus sometimes has lots of lightning, but sometimes no lightning anywhere on the planet. That's hard to believe, verging on impossible to believe. Perhaps if volcanic ash clouds are the source of all lightning, that would be possible, with lightning depending upon eruptions. For now, that explanation doesn't stand up very well to Occam's Razor.

Venus has some pretty different atmospheric conditions from the "other" lightning planets (Earth, Jupiter, Saturn -- an unlikely trio), especially in that lacking a magnetic field, the thick atmosphere gets pounded by solar wind. Maybe that is the key distinction in the lack of radio/plasma detection.

I'm not sure if lightning on Venus has any ramifications other than

[JRehling]

I'm not sure if lightning on Venus has any ramifications other than

Oops. Cut myself off there. I meant to say, ... other than its own existence/nonexistence. Ie, I don't know if any putative lightning would actually do anything besides crackle and flash. On Earth, it creates ozone. Maybe lightning does/would leave some chemical footprints in the venusian clouds?