A Night on Venus

[PaloFinn]

I've been wondering about this, maybe someone can answer it for me. As most of you probibly know, a day on Venus is about 243 earth days and its year is around 225 earth days. Is it possible that a cirtian pont on Venus wont see "daytime"? Sence it has&nbsp;a&nbsp;faster revolution than rotation time could it not see the sun? <br />... I probibly didnt work the question right... I'm having a hard time puting it out into words. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[baulten]

Sounds like you are asking if it'd tidally locked; eg. only one side faces the sun at any given time.&nbsp; The answer is no.&nbsp; The time from sunrise to sunset is ridiculously long though; something like 200 days.

 

[neilsox]

It does not get dark during much of the extremely long night, because the atmosphere is about 100 miles thick. At the surface the nights are only slightly cooler than the days because the winds circulate the atmosphere much faster than the rotation. We would need a 5 or ten stage air conditioner to keep humans alive on the surface more than an hour. Such an air conditioner would use at least ten times the energy of a typical air conditioner. Worse photo voltaic cells on the surface supply much less energy because the atmosphere greatly reduces the energy that reaches the surface. There are scarcely any seasons because the tilt on the axis is less than 2 degrees compared to almost 23 degrees for Earth. The highest mountain peaks may be 45 degrees f = 25 degrees c cooler than the hottest locations. Neil

 

[crazyeddie]

Re:

I've been wondering about this, maybe someone can answer it for me. As most of you probibly know, a day on Venus is about 243 earth days and its year is around 225 earth days. Is it possible that a cirtian pont on Venus wont see "daytime"? Sence it has a faster revolution than rotation time could it not see the sun?
... I probibly didnt work the question right... I'm having a hard time puting it out into words.

I have read that due to the density of the Venusian atmosphere, true darkness never occurs on the surface, even at the antipodes (the part of the planet turned farthest away from the sun). Diffuse sunlight is refracted through the dense layers, all the way around the planet, which means even at the local "midnight", on observer on the surface would still be surrounded by a dull, red twilight. If the sun is actually visible through the clouds from the surface (and I don't think anyone knows for sure whether it is or not), as the planet slowly rotated, this hypothetical observer would see the sun slowly flatten as it approached the horizon, then it's image would spread out into a thin pancake layer that would spread all the way around the horizon until it reformed on the opposite side from where it set, then gradually reform itself into a ball as it rose. Very peculiar, eh?

 

[eosophobiac]

Re: Re:

I have read that due to the density of the Venusian atmosphere, true darkness never occurs on the surface, even at the antipodes (the part of the planet turned farthest away from the sun). Diffuse sunlight is refracted through the dense layers, all the way around the planet, which means even at the local "midnight", on observer on the surface would still be surrounded by a dull, red twilight. If the sun is actually visible through the clouds from the surface (and I don't think anyone knows for sure whether it is or not), as the planet slowly rotated, this hypothetical observer would see the sun slowly flatten as it approached the horizon, then it's image would spread out into a thin pancake layer that would spread all the way around the horizon until it reformed on the opposite side from where it set, then gradually reform itself into a ball as it rose. Very peculiar, eh?

Peculiar, indeed! And that is an informative - and imaginative - description, CE. And I mean that in a good way: I was able to kind of visualize it happening just as you described! Very cool!