Worlds in Collision
Tim Callahan, religion editor of "Skeptic", presses the case further in claiming that the composition of the atmosphere of Venus is a complete disproof of "Worlds in Collision". "...Velikovsky's hypothesis stands or falls on Venus having a reducing atmosphere made up mainly of hydrocarbons. In fact, the atmosphere of Venus is made up mainly of carbon dioxide—carbon in its "oxidized" form—along with clouds of sulfuric acid. Therefore, it couldn't have carried such an atmosphere with it out of Jupiter and it couldn't be the source of hydrocarbons to react with oxygen in our atmosphere to produce carbohydrates. Velikovsky's hypothesis is falsified by the carbon dioxide atmosphere of Venus."
Venus
Venus has an extremely dense atmosphere composed of 96.5% carbon dioxide, 3.5% nitrogen, and traces of other gases, most notably sulfur dioxide. The mass of its atmosphere is 93 times that of Earth's, whereas the pressure at its surface is about 92 times that at Earth's—a pressure equivalent to that at a depth of nearly under Earth's oceans. The density at the surface is 65 kg/m, 6.5% that of water or 50 times as dense as Earth's atmosphere at at sea level. The -rich atmosphere generates the strongest greenhouse effect in the Solar System, creating surface temperatures of at least . This makes Venus's surface hotter than Mercury's, which has a minimum surface temperature of and maximum surface temperature of , even though Venus is nearly twice Mercury's distance from the Sun and thus receives only 25% of Mercury's solar irradiance. This temperature is higher than that used for sterilization.