We’ve been to the moon. Mars is easy. But landing on Venus?
That’s tough. - By Sam Kean - Air & Space magazine, September
2010 (Page 2 of 4) At an altitude of about nine miles, well
below the cloud decks, SAGE finally begins to take pictures of
the surface. So few photographs exist of Venus (all taken by the
Venera landers) that every image of the surface will be
precious. But aside from showing impressive volcanoes, the
landscape shots might be pretty blasé. There are no vistas of
lakes or forests, and the air will be hazy—a dreary low light
like the fifth rainy morning in a row. The thick atmosphere
absorbs high-frequency blue light, so the resulting colors, or
rather color, of the surface will be both dull (a kind of rusty
yellow) and intense (relentless, unbroken). At eight miles above
the surface, according to JPL planetary scientist Suzanne
Smrekar, the carbon dioxide in Venus’ atmosphere becomes so
dense that it turns “supercritical.” Supercritical carbon
dioxide is a gas-liquid mix that can eat throug