Neighbours, Venus, and rabbits...

Son Down;
Thought it might be nice to kick off with a traditional sonset.

Our next door neighbor, flying coffee, concrete mixers and Rabbits;

South Pacific 10/5/2011.

One of the best bits of the dawn watch is that just now we see a small group of 3 bright stars followed by a lone star which rise just before the sun.. yes straight out of the east, on our stern. The group of 3 are Mercury, Neptune and Venus, the lone ranger just visible before the suns light, is Mars.  Its a pity not to be on land with my telescope. Its wonderful to see 4 of the major stars in our solar system all at the same time.

Venus, now there is an interesting place. In fact it is the most interesting planet in the whole universe.  What do we know about Venus? Well for a start it is the nearest planet to Earth and it is almost exactly the same size, although a venus year is about 8 months. It is slightly closer to the sun than earth but its proximity to earth in space terms would be as close as Kensington to Chelsea or Ballsbridge to Donnybrook (for the Dubs). So earth and Venus are so close as to more or less occupy the same area.

However venus is that bit closer to the sun and therefore it thawed out first. Venus used to be very similar to earth, and after its big thaw it had mountains, valleys, rivers, lakes, and oceans. The climate warmed up to be more or less the same as earths today,  therefore was capable of supporting abundant life. That Venus had all this water is no coincidence. Earth got its water during the 2ad great bombardment, and given that Venus is next door one can safely say they got their fair share of the frozen ice meteorites. 

Now there is no reason to assume that the Venus God didn’t do a 7 day wonder there too and sprinkle the planet generously with lush vegetation and scores of different animals. Or if you prefer the evolution stuff and so as not to upset my aunt Lizzy, then the Venus God spent 7 days souping up the chemicals at the bottom of the ocean having cracked the planets surface a little to facilitate the escape of lots of venus gasses etc from the planets core. These chemicals went on to bind and ultimately formed the first living cels which went on to evolve into  bi-cels then tiny venus tadpoles and from that point there was no stopping venus evolution, as hundreds of thousands, no millions of species evolved. Just as the Venus God had planned. Life was easier in venus as the evolution gang and the god lot actually agreed on how it all came about.

Sorry, back to the facts of Venus. There is no reason to assume that life did not form on Venus. In fact there is plenty of antidotal evidence  to assume it did. How smart & intelligent were they? We don’t know, but they may have been as dumb as earthlings, if thats possible.  One thing for sure is that one of the the outer layers of the atmosphere is CARBON.

Now we all know the most likely source of carbon. Rotting plants. And what is the carbon on venus doing up in the sky and not under the ground or the ocean where nature put it?

Well for the true story on that you will have to read the piece below titled ‘Rabbits’. 

In the mean time some more boring facts.. not so boring if you are an earthling..the Russians a few years back.. in fact about 40 years ago during the early years of the space age, sent a spudzsky to Venus. They were so shocked at what they saw nobody has ever, ever sent a rocket there again... 

Quite extraordinary, 60 years of the space age and no more rockets to our nearest neighbor?. Heres why; Before the spudzsky broke down it sent back loads of information and a few holiday snaps. They did see mountains, valleys and an ocean floor.  Yes read that again carefully.. floor, an ocean floor, the ocean was .. well, missing. The seas had vanished. And where did they go and why..? 

Unfortunately something went very astray on the planet venus about a 5 cullion* years ago: All the carbon suddenly escaped into the atmosphere more or less at the same time, (say over 200 venus years, = 160 earth years). Because the carbon escaped too fast for it to be reabsorbed by the plants etc, it built up in the atmosphere, trapping in the heat from the sun. As the planet got warmer the carbon escape became faster and faster and faster.. exponential for all readers over 6. Eventually the atmosphere reached 100 degrees celsius in places, so there was no water there, obviously, as water evaporates at 100c. Then as the planet heated up the number of ‘deserts’ grew, also exponentially. Eventually the whole planet was 100c and rising. So now you know where the oceans of Venus are.

So back to life on FARRFLY....

Sorry you want me to be more specific on Venus.. ok.. eventually all the oceans evaporated into the atmosphere as the average atmospheric temperature climbed to over 100c. The ruskies sputnik found temperatures of between 250c and 400c.

So at those kind of air temperatures a lot more than the water has evaporated. The sky there is now an ugly soup of red hot chemicals and steam in which no living creature could survive. 

Oh least we forget, the conspiracy lot say that the ruskies found desolate abandoned modern cities all over the planet. But thats hard to believe. Intelligent beings would have found a way to stop the carbon escape and they would never have caused it them selves... but as I said at the beginning who said they .. or we... are intelligent...

So back to life on our oceans while we still have them... or

the venus Rabbits are far more interesting ... which will we deal with first... Rabbits..

The Rabbits of the planet Venus.

The russian sputnik might have found fossils by the million, of an animal not to be found on earth. The fossils were those of a large rabbit with a huge head and long pointed fingers on its front legs. Otherwise it was basically an earth bunny rabbit. 

The venus rabbits as the rukies might have called them, evolved to be very smart because of their big heads and very proficient with their ‘hands’. They soon became the dominant species, helped by the theory that they had few predators on venus.. ie no foxes and no humans. They were a peace loving species and there were never any wars on venus. The whole planet also had only one god, which they called the god of nature.

A number of things led to their down fall. The bunnies craved sex and adored baby bunnies beyond all logical reason. As a result they bred like .. rabbits! And it mattered not if the rabbits were rich or poor, in fact it seems that the worse their living conditions the more ‘baby bunnies’ they had. By the time the end came there were not tens of millions of them but BILLIONS of them running amok all over the planet venus. They occupied nearly every corner of the planet including the most remote islands... One has to ask why?

 Now the balance of venus nature would probably have stayed in equilibrium until they made a big discovery; cooked food tasted better than raw food. Now this seemingly innocent enough event led to their first demand for ‘fuel’ and their ultimate downfall.

The bunnies started cutting down trees to cook with. Next of course they discovered that cooking inside the burrow made it nice and dry and warm but too smokey, so they built little dry houses with chimneys. So they needed more fuel, and as luck would have it they found fossil fuel just at the right time. Oil and coal were abundant on venus having built up over tens of millions of years. Boy did those rabbits go mad for the oil. They started digging and pecking at the ground like demented chickens. And they found all the planets coal and oil so they had loads of fuel for their bunmobiles and homes, which by then were collected together in massive cities. Oh I nearly forgot to mention that somewhere along the way a really crazy but smart yellow bunny  called Mr Mad-za invented the bunmobile, a little buggy in which the whole family could ride into and out of the city and around in nice circles.

Now we already know what happened next, but how quickly it happened is interesting.

The rabbits got together every few years and elected leaders with nice smiling Bugs Bunny teeth. These bunnies looked good but  were usually exceptionally egoistical and rather dumb. Meanwhile the smart scientists rabbits with the biggest heads of all,  had been warning about carbon build up in the atmosphere, rabbits listened, and left it  to their leaders to worry about, which they didn’t, as they only worried about being re-elected.

Anyhow it seems that in the space of 100 years the venus rabbits had found and dug up 10 million years worth of fossil fuels and burnt the lot, sending billowing clouds of carbon into the venus sky.

  The scientists said stop and eventually they did.. but only when a terrible thing happened: 

The north and south poles of venus were frozen. In fact the top quarter and bottom quarter were still frozen solid. One day the venusians in the north complained that the permafrost was melting and they were up to hind hopping legs in mud. 

Worse still, huge bubbles of carbon each the size of a football stadium was leaking, of its own account into the air. The scientists rushed north but what could they do. Every day millions of stadium sized bubbles of carbon gas oozed into the sky from the melting permafrost.. and the air was getting warmer rapidly. So the rabbits  were all running about stamping on the permafrost trying to stop it.. cover it in concrete was one suggestion, until the scientists reminded them that one ton of concrete produces one ton of carbon... so they planted trees everywhere, which if given long enough might have helped but.. then trouble really started... 

Fisherabbits said they could see millions of new tiny bubbles in the sea  bubbling up from the bottom like champagne. The scientists rushed to find out what was happening. The sea bed was home to millions of years of dead seaweed, fossils and all sorts of carbon accumulations. The cold deep oceans acted like a big fridge and locked the carbon deep down for all eternity.... until the dumb rabbits came along and heated up the air which heated up the sea and now in the warm water the carbon was bubbling up to the surface. 

Meanwhile most of the bunnies partied on. They still craved sex and had as many little bunnies as possible, and  built more and more fuel guzzling cities. To ensure re-election the leaders ensured that fuel supplies would never be interrupted and that everyone had air conditioning to deal with the heat and a bunmobile.

Now some did worry about climate change and disliked the heat and worried about its effects on the climate and venus polar bears and so on, so they bought solar panels and windmills.. 

What they should have worried about and a lot sooner,  if they had thought about it at all maybe they would be still there.. was WATER. 

You might recall my mentioning the 2ad bombardment. Well that brought the water to venus.. an exact and very precise amount of water (H2O to be accurate). Planets do not ‘make’ water. There is an exact finite amount of water (H&O) on, for example earth. It was delivered here in one go millions of years ago. None has arrived since, none has left and we have made none. The existing supply simply goes around in circles. Now back on venus the air heated up and as we know warm air holds more water than cold air, so the fresh water on venus started to ‘disappear’ into the air. The resultant dryness on the ground was signaled by bush fires all over the planet and creeping desertification. 

Then the terrible thing happened.. 

The one thing that finally stopped the party, that brought the bunnies to their senses, the leaders all resigned, the scientists said we never thought of this, all of a sudden- practically over night - right across the whole planet of venus,.......... at the height of the party.....

IT STOPPED RAINING. 

A new phenomena was observed; rainfall had turned into ‘rainrise’.

Rivers and lakes started to steam at dawn and the vapors rose steadily into the sky all day.

With no water everything stopped growing, all plants died, there was no food, and within 6 months 90% of the population was dead. (The scene was ugly, the peace loving rabbits went at each other like savages for the last drops of water.) The runaway searing heat took care of the survivalists within a couple of years.

How long between the commencement of the large scale burning  by cities of fossil fuel and the day it stopped raining?  Who can be sure maybe 200 years.

And so, now you know, why venus is the most interesting planet in the universe to an earth-bunny. 

REMEMBER ITS NOT THEORY, IT HAPPENED, VENUS OUT NEAREST NEIGHBOR IS A GIANT OVEN, ENCASED IN CARBON GASSES.

Now what started me banging on about all that?.. why yes, I see venus every morning with my flying cup of coffee as I start the dawn watch. Its a sobering sight.

Now I have written this in a stye that most politicians would comprehend. So if you know one or know someone who knows one send it on... 

It won’t make any difference, the political system is part of the problem, not the solution. 

dc

Next blog.. life on the Starship FARRFLY... as long as I don’t get distracted again... more on coffee and concrete mixers.

Son set mom after sun set.
No doubt the Starship is missing its crew.