Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Ivebeenfurthereven t1_j3vxic7 wrote

Reminder that Venus is an Earth-size planet in the habitable zone. (In fact, historically many people thought there could be a civilisation under the clouds, an idea that only really died when we started to take absurd temperature readings and the Soviets successfully deployed landers to the hellscape below)

Still, exciting thought.

41

ConfirmedCynic t1_j3vyy1m wrote

It isn't, actually. 0.72 AU but the Sun's habitable zone extends from 0.9 AU to 1.5 AU. It may have been at one time, when the sun was dimmer.

I guess this all depends on who you ask about the boundaries of the habitable zone though, answers vary.

33

Elan_Morin_Tedronaii t1_j3y3adz wrote

I remember watching a video with I think Carl Sagan? Where he talks about how there may be dense jungles underneath the thick venusian atmosphere.

4

Lurlex t1_j3yn3bh wrote

If it was Cosmos, I think I remember the same. Except, what he was saying is that we had discovered within the last decade (at the time of filming, the 1970s) that this was NOT the case. When he was talking about Venusian jungles, he was referring to what people once speculated.

I may be wrong about that, I don’t remember the year in which Russia got that lander onto the surface. There is a big focus on both versions of Cosmos in illustrating how old ideas have died out in favor of new ones, however, so he and Neil both talked about past incorrect hypothesis all the time to contrast them against what we know now.

2