Is this why Venus lost its oceans? | BBC Global

The Earth and Venus are made of similar material and are about the same size.
Yet one planet has an abundance of water and the other is bone dry.
When and how did this happen?
Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder think the answer lies in a non-thermal process called 'HCO+ Dissociative Recombination'.
We spoke with co-lead researcher of the study Dr Michael Chaffin to learn more.
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#bbc #venus #space

[@salam-peace5519]

Imagining that Venus probably looked like earth in its early times with oceans and maybe even life is fascinating. I wonder if there could still be fossils left of any life from Venus' ocean phase that we could possibly find one day.

[@DrumToTheBassWoop]

No, its volcanically active, most likely all sedimentary rock has been recycled.

[@GeorgeGiann]

Perhaps. But then again, look at how hot our summers are, here on Earth.. can you imagine being that close to the Sun?

[@kellydalstok8900]

@@GeorgeGiann Venus is still within the habitable zone, as is Mars.

[@manuelvale3996]

0:25 that is mars on the left, not Venus.

[@kidmohair8151]

that is the radar imaging of Venus' surface. none of the surface features of Mars are visible in the one spin around its axis it takes.

[@jaredupchurch7819]

That was very obviously Valles Marineris

[@randyreynolds4252]

@@kidmohair8151 so Venus has the same giant scar? go back and look, is clearly the scar from Mars

[@manuelvale3996]

@@kidmohair8151 some are radar images of Venus. The one I mentioned is mars. The 3 volcanoes and vallis marineris.

[@chuckylugs9607]

@@jaredupchurch7819 and the three huge volcano’s too, Olympus Mons ..can’t remember the other two names 🤯❗️

[@revolutionhamburger]

I'm not mad at Venus. It's her close relationship with the Sun that was her primary problem.

[@neptune1525]

Hahaha soo funny 😊

[@c.guibbs1238]

There is also a likeliness that Venus never saw liquid water on its surface. As Venus was always hotter than Earth, water might have stayed supercrtical and later removed by the Solar Wind. As Venus does not display any evidence of liquid water flows (unlike Mars), we will never know...

[@alexbowman7582]

Venus’s surface may have melted due to a huge impact.

[@yancgc5098]

The surface of Venus doesn’t display water flows because the whole planet went through a global resurfacing event a few hundred million years ago, completely changing how the surface looked

[@markminter1]

They’re using a globe of Mars…not Venus

[@owenpancoast1163]

0:25 that's Mars on the left🤦‍♂

[@MrJacksspleen]

It's taken decades of landing rovers on Mars to theorize the amount of water Mars once had. Venus has had a fraction of that exploration, so exactly how have we determined the amount of water that was once on Venus? Is it just an assumption that it must have had as.much water as Earth because of its size? Considering the prominent theories of how Earth got its water, how could you make that assumption?

[@Andrew-is7rs]

It lost its ocean because it was twatted by a proto planet that caused Venus to not only spin in the opposing direction but also very very slowly too.

[@leiathedog999]

Being "twatted" is the proper scientific term.

[@mattbrown-mb]

Nice sound design - any chance of the creatives being credited?

[@dabrams84]

They don't read the comments but if you go to their website there will be multiple points of contact. You may be able to find this video on their website which might credit them.

[@DarkHelixia]

Even the Goddess of Love has to dry up eventually...

[@kellydalstok8900]

Was it hot flashes?

[@JavenarchX]

This was interesting. The only problem was that it kept on showing Venus without an atmosphere when it's talking predominantly about the atmosphere.....

[@DavidGalich77]

I wonder which planet was more like Earth; Mars or Venus?

[@Asteroid_Bennu]

Earth today or Early Earth? Because Early Earth was nothing like it is today!

[@zzappligator]

I suspect Hadean Earth and Hadean Venus were pretty much alike.

[@RealUlrichLeland]

Earth and Venus are very close in mass and proximity to the sun, but Venus' days are longer than it's years and it has no moons.

[@legitbeans9078]

@@RealUlrichLeland And it spins backwards lol. Venus is a weird one

[@AKSnowbat907]

You're not taking into account the creation of our moon. The ice on that planet and the minerals in it we left on earth. Venus did not experience this so it may have only had water equal to comet impacts.

[@forcetheedges]

Wow, what a coincidence, my favorite grindcore band is also called HCO+ Dissociative Recombination!

[@goodone5590]

Maybe, its the Lord Jesus?

[@agent109g8]

If it evaporated then where did it go? Shouldn't there be traces of the gas in its orbit?

[@alexbowman7582]

I think Venus may have been Earth like with oceans until a huge object collided with Venus, melting the crust and boiling off the oceans.

[@arsalanhasan2953]

Is there any kind of chain reaction we (humans) start on Venus's atmosphere to produce water and rain down that water so the planet gets cool and suitable for life as we know it?

[@SirThanksalot_1]

since you need the hydrogen, they would need to import a lot, because 3cm of water is really not much to live off for a planetary ecosystem.

[@ThePieIsNotALie]

For cooling, you can put "sunshades" between the sun and Venus. You could make them almost tinfoil-thick and cover a massive area with relatively little effort. Plausibly doable now, if you could find the money. There's too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Sequestering some in the basalt crust, or the silicon dioxide in the mantle, might be options. Bombardment won't eject much carbon dioxide. Nudging an object from the Kuiper belt into Venus' orbit, with enough mass to potentially give Venus a new moon, is an idea. Directly removing the carbon dioxide is surprisingly difficult, courtesy of the high escape velocity and dense atmosphere (~90bar). Bombarding it with hydrogen does get you two birds with one stone; turning carbon into graphite and oxygen into water. You'd only need something in the range of 40,000,000,000,000,000 tonnes. On the more theoretical side, you could build a large "stellaser", that would draw both power and hydrogen directly from the sun, to "shoot" hydrogen at Venus. If you do manage to thin Venus' atmosphere, congratulations! Courtesy of the planet's slow rotation speed, there's now a massive temperature difference between sun-side and dark-side. Might have to expand those solar shades to regulate an artificial day/night cycle. Also, you still don't have a proper magnetosphere. Serious terraforming of planets is an arduous, and typically destructive, process.

[@dphuntsman]

Need hydrogen. If we were seriously interested in terraforming Venus, “easiest” way might be steering comets into it which adds water/hydrogen (but also, energy).

[@tsovloj6510]

The Bosch reaction would be the easy one (hydrogen + CO2 in the presence of an iron catalyst produces graphite and water), and it produces energy, so it's got a great cost/benefit ratio if you're thinking terraforming thoughts, but you'd need to import the hydrogen, which would be a long and laborious process; you'd either have to truck it in from the outer system gas giants (probably Uranus, least steep gravity well) or somehow harness the solar wind. This is a centuries to millennia type of project, realistically.

[@apollosungod2819]

First you need to have Space Tug boat ships. Then send those space tug boats to tow any huge ice rocks over the very "vast" distances required to find them by scanning the solar system... most of them may be found closer to the Asteroid Belt and beyond and the towing has to be very controlled... Next drop those large ice covered rocks or hopefully higher percentage ice balls on to Venus. Next you will need a significant amount of ice rocks to drop on Venus...

[@Sekhem]

So, this theory solves the previously observed deuterium and hydrogen ratio problem?

[@splifsend]

no

[@epockismet76]

It's too young to have had oceans, anything else is pure speculation, and theory.

[@countryside_guy]

Can't understand what she's saying.

[@stepaushi]

0:15 Why should the planets being of similar material and similar size mean that "theoretically" they should have the same amount of water??? That is such an uninformed and silly statement for a scientific presentation. 🤦🏻‍♂

[@michaelcharlesthearchangel]

Earth absorbed the water as it formed a spiral ring that came within the Earth and Moon's orbit.

[@striker44]

Good topic but bad narration. Slow down, pause a bit for strong effect.

[@moisessan1]

Los perdio porque gira muy lento.

[@hazzah5572]

0:30 Earth would have a 5km thick layer if you spread the oceans equally? No. That is not true. That is no more true than what they said about the Laurentian Abyss at the end of the Transformers Movie. Simple Google search for this kind of information is recommended. Avg ocean depth is 3.6 kilometers.

[@dgpeachy4257]

I don't know, why are you asking me?

[@IvanChrisantus]

Jupiter is a reason there is no life on mars , and the sun is the reason there's no life on venus , while the earth is at the safe position , that's why we need to ask ourselves why ???

[@londonoverground]

No we don't

[@marktimeny1488]

I am thinking of opening up a convenience store on Venus !

[@mrhassell]

Somebody is forgetting that Earth, has more Ocean content "Inside" the Earths planet, than it does on te surface. So does that mean, there are still perfectly surfable oceans, inside Venus?

[@blueabattoir]

I might have to look into that. I have never heard this before.

[@paulpenfold867]

​@@blueabattoir the 'water' he's talking about is fused into the rock, it's not flowing water or an 'ocean', like the vanished surface water of Venus.

[@ConcreteLand]

@@paulpenfold867this is correct.

[@apollosungod2819]

The topic is "surface water on Venus" not other forms

[@RealUlrichLeland]

We already know there are vast subsurface oceans on several icy moons throughout the solar system like Titan, Europa and Enceladus.

[@ralphrex9118]

Great, more fascinating stuff I can throw at people who have no interest in the wonders of reality, thanks BBC 🤓

[@stepaushi]

1:27 Why is venus' state considered "botched"? What does that mean???

[@alwillcox]

"Parched", not "botched".

[@stepaushi]

@@alwillcox OH! Thanks.

[@MacVerick]

I think Venus had a moon then lost it

[@or3325]

I think the average depth of an evenly spread ocean on Earth would be 3.682 km (Average ocean depth) * 0.71 (Ocean sufrace area / Total area) = 2.614 km. It's not 5 km

[@HansMilling]

If Venus had liquid water, we should send probes to discover if life was present there.

[@splifsend]

Russia already did - 3 times - and there's no life

[@freebozkurt9277]

@@splifsend Probes cannot even find life on earth. They have tested it.

[@c.guibbs1238]

The Soviets did it already : not a single probe can sustain the harsh conditions of Venus !

[@YBM2007]

​@@c.guibbs1238Sure it can, but not for very long. I've read 500 operational hours will be possible with current technology compared to an hour or so in the Venera days

[@Kevin-p2l5b]

Okay.

[@4rmDEC2FRE]

Either hire Neil or forget about it 💯

[@master-kq3nw]

Now dry desert

[@hazzah5572]

Looots of factual errors in this one.

[@userbosco]

Um, not a rocket scientist, but the proximity to the SUN maybe? What're the temps there on the sunny side? Not Mercury hot, but smok'n for sure! 450 degs C.....

[@desmondchoo3186]

Alien came and sucked all the water off Venus. Earth is next…

[@AceKiller9000]

Shouldn't a correct title be: "is this *how* Venus lost it's oceans"...?

[@markj3118]

Oddly, no. With an apostrophe, it is a contraction for “it is”. Without an apostrophe, it is the possessive pronoun. Just one of many exceptions in English.

[@AceKiller9000]

​@@markj3118 Sorry for confusion, i was actually substituting the word How instead of Why. This video seems to propose a method as a solution rather than a reason. We might learn How it happened, but unlikely we will learn Why ... any help with this. (Also i am curious about the its / it's dilemma now, thanks for another sleepless night! Lol joke)

[@MrJacksspleen]

First you need a video titled, "Is there any proof Venus ever had any oceans?"

[@NyanyiC]

How did this all come into existence?

[@danjo8673]

Since Venus rotates on its axis in the opposite direction of Earth, I've often wondered if Venus had collided with Earth which not only formed our Moon, but we got most of Venus's water in the process. Scientists have wondered how and why we ended up with so much water.

[@apollosungod2819]

Asteroids are not always rocky... some are huge iceberg covered rocks in space.

[@striker44]

Some kind of NFC action.

[@YBM2007]

Interesting, that would make more sense than the mythical Theia in my feeble mind

[@j.pershing2197]

Venus never had oceans. Its new

[@majortwang2396]

Grow up

[@5ch3nk]

Probably has something to do with Venus being 460 degrees.

[@fanatamon]

Perish the thought.

[@jaydurocher1882]

Every planet moves from currently orbit.. mars used to be here. Now it's earth next is venus . Common wake up do your OWN research do the math based on how much a planet moved per year get a simulator app with all planets then you'll see

[@Ounk_cannabisteams]

Pictures by weather

[@crazieeez]

The Sun grow up to vaporize venus

[@amitrakshe5773]

Pluto left chat

[@user-vp1sc7tt4m]

Am I correct? Earth could also lose Hydrogen by the same process, just like Venus and Mars. Why is the process of hydrogen loss related to atmospheric and other conditions not more widely known? This is definitely a concern over the long period of time on Earth and should be considered.

[@tobik2627]

its true, same happens to earth. earth loses about 100 tons every day.

[@tobik2627]

interesting, and in 5 years theres a new theory.

[@A3Kr0n]

Maybe aliens changed Earth for a vacation spot and put cleverness in humans for their entertainment.

[@fanatamon]

As good a guess as any, although the aliens screwed up with not removing the greed section of brain which pretty much is costing our planet a lot and us as a race.

[@dougmurray7684]

I wish I had that much hair only to leave it uncombed.

[@antimagicsword]

Oof. Is hydrogen escaping from Mars as well?

[@RealUlrichLeland]

Yes. Even on Earth, where the gravity is significantly stronger than Mars and Venus, Hydrogen is still light enough to escape the atmosphere into space. The reason this isn't a big deal on earth is because almost all of our hydrogen is bonded to oxygen in water molecules, and because our atmosphere is protected from solar winds by our magnetic field. There is some water on mars, but it's all either underground, chemically bound in the rocks or frozen solid at the poles. The reason Mars has hardly any atmosphere anymore is because it's magnetic field disappeared a long time ago. The convection of molten iron in the core is what creates the magnetic fields of earth, but on Mars the core cooled down much faster than earth because it's 9 times less massive. Without a magnetic field, Mars' atmosphere was gradually blasted into space by high energy charged particles from solar storms.

[@RealUlrichLeland]

Yes. Even on Earth, where the gravity is significantly stronger than Mars and Venus, Hydrogen is still light enough to escape the atmosphere into space. The reason this isn't a big deal on earth is because almost all of our hydrogen is bonded to oxygen in water molecules, and because our atmosphere is protected from solar winds by our magnetic field. There is some water on mars, but it's all either underground, chemically bound to the minerals or frozen solid at the poles. The reason Mars has hardly any atmosphere anymore is because it's magnetic field disappeared a long time ago. The convection of molten iron in the core is what creates the magnetic fields of earth, but on Mars the core cooled down much faster than earth because it's 9 times less massive. Without a magnetic field, Mars' atmosphere was gradually blasted into space by high energy charged particles from solar storms.

[@compactreview]

Mars has no magnetic field and thus the atmosphere isnt protected against the sun. The atmosphere is very thin because of it. And all water in the surface with it. However, beneath the surface water is protected

[@kuntalgo]

And the aliens from Venus came to Earth and created democratic Nation states.

[@KootFloris]

Does that mean, with a warming up planet, we also might start to lose water?

[@zzappligator]

I think that's part of what they're trying to figure out. But these time scales appear to be much longer than the 100-year scale climate change we hear about in the news that endangers our infrastructure and civilizations. Significant evaporation appears to be a 100 thousand or million year thing. On that larger scale, we also have Milankovich cycles that might freeze things again (ice ages).

[@KootFloris]

@@zzappligator great reply

[@G6JPG]

@@KootFloris Yes. On the few decades/century or so scale, we seem to be more in danger of having too _much_ water, albeit in the wrong places and contaminated (sea levels rising, deserts).

[@KootFloris]

@@G6JPG And like they discovered in NL, Frisia 900x the accepted norm of PFAS

[@Nabraska49]

Yeah so why didn’t this happen to earth .. the obvious is that the planet is a lot closer to the sun and if was in the earth orbit it would probably look much like the earth.. my theory is that all planets were born from the sun .. mars is the old earth and Venus will one day be the new earth as the planets are slowly moving away from the sun and as they do so they pass through the habitable zone.

[@YBM2007]

Venus is marginally closer to the Sun than Earth, tho it should be significantly hotter - not off the scales as it is per our understanding.

[@Dany-rx7rs]

Third comment, 60th viewer

[@SylentEcho]

Great! Here's your no-prize medal 🏅

[@BeeFunKnee]

@@SylentEcho Better hand out another 8 billion no-prize medals or else the rest of the world will get upset for getting left out, and then pretend-cry like they're all perfect victims.

[@acuantjahyadi7393]

Venus ??? BBC ??? 😂😂😂😂 💩💩💩💩💩

[@Wigington24]

Allegedly nasholes

[@Shadoweknows76]

😂😂😂 Venus? I have a video of this planet (wandering star), and it shows the entity inside. All stars are fallen angels ✡️. I couldn't even watch the video because of the title being a lie.

[@majortwang2396]

You need to do less drugs

[@accessdenied3379]

So, it means we're going to loose our water within next few hundred years. Because we're moving towards hydrogen based fuels and machines for future.