I’ve been reading that Venus’ atmospheric pressure is something like 90x Earth’s…but since Venus’ gravity is almost identical to ours and with no magnetic field to keep the solar wind from stripping the atmosphere from the planet, what makes and keeps it so thick? How does it not just evaporate or blow off into space (if being continuously fed by volcanoes) to make it closer to Earth’s density under Earth-like gravity?
**Edit:** Thanks to all of you who took the time to answer here; I think I finally understand what’s at play and how it works. Made my night, and you’re all awesome, hey? 🙂
In: 11
From what I read, it’s atmosphere Is being blown away, about the same rate as earth, but it doesn’t seem to have much effect…
Another thing is the amount of co2 in the atmosphere, Venus hasn’t had oceans in a long time… on earth, the oceans absorb the co2 and make it into limestone… Venus can’t do that so the co2 just stays in the atmosphere…
Another is there’s not enough knowledge of impact and volcanic history of that planet to know how they contribute (apparently Japan has a probe looking now)
That probe has found that the ionosphere reacts with the solar wind itself, creating a magnetic field that both pushes the wind away and pushes the atmosphere back to the planet
More work needs to be done to understand fully
I’ve been reading that Venus’ atmospheric pressure is something like 90x Earth’s…but since Venus’ gravity is almost identical to ours and with no magnetic field to keep the solar wind from stripping the atmosphere from the planet, what makes and keeps it so thick? How does it not just evaporate or blow off into space (if being continuously fed by volcanoes) to make it closer to Earth’s density under Earth-like gravity?
**Edit:** Thanks to all of you who took the time to answer here; I think I finally understand what’s at play and how it works. Made my night, and you’re all awesome, hey? 🙂
In: 11
From what I read, it’s atmosphere Is being blown away, about the same rate as earth, but it doesn’t seem to have much effect…
Another thing is the amount of co2 in the atmosphere, Venus hasn’t had oceans in a long time… on earth, the oceans absorb the co2 and make it into limestone… Venus can’t do that so the co2 just stays in the atmosphere…
Another is there’s not enough knowledge of impact and volcanic history of that planet to know how they contribute (apparently Japan has a probe looking now)
That probe has found that the ionosphere reacts with the solar wind itself, creating a magnetic field that both pushes the wind away and pushes the atmosphere back to the planet
More work needs to be done to understand fully
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