Is it possible to turn Venus from boiling hellscape to liveable world?

Venus shouldn’t be a fantastic place to be. Its floor reaches temperatures as much as 475°C, which is scorching sufficient to soften lead. Even excessive up within the ambiance the place the temperatures and pressures aren’t so intense, the sky is affected by clouds of sulphuric acid. However Venus most likely wasn’t all the time so unhealthy – it might have as soon as been a temperate world just like Earth, earlier than a runaway greenhouse impact ruined the place.

On this episode of Useless Planets Society, our hosts Chelsea Whyte and Leah Crane try to show again time on Venus, serving to it reside as much as its liveable planet potential. Planetary scientist Paul Byrne at Washington College in St. Louis joins them as soon as once more on this uncharacteristically benevolent mission to repair Venus.

Step one is to wash out that dense, scorching, sulphur-filled ambiance – a troublesome activity, though simpler than terraforming Mars can be, because of Venus’ bigger measurement. This could possibly be achieved utilizing a number of the similar applied sciences proposed to assist mitigate world warming on Earth… or it could possibly be achieved through the use of a large potato gun that shoots asteroids. It’s anybody’s guess which path our hosts will select to go down, however one factor is for certain: it’s not going to be nice for the remainder of the photo voltaic system. And issues will solely get extra chaotic once they transfer Venus right into a cooler orbit farther from the solar so as to keep its new, friendlier local weather.

Useless Planets Society is a podcast that takes outlandish concepts about the right way to tinker with the cosmos – from snapping the moon in half to inflicting a gravitational wave apocalypse – and topics them to the legal guidelines of physics to see how they fare.

To pay attention, subscribe to New Scientist Weekly or go to our podcast web page right here.