Solar System Planet

The Solar System: Do Scientists Really Know How It Formed?
By Josh Greenberger

The vast differences between the planets do not seem to support the accepted scientific theories of their formation.

The theory held by many scientists concerning the evolution of our solar system is basically that a large gas cloud in space condensed into what we now call the sun. Chunks of this cloud flew off into orbit around the sun and eventually condensed into planets. That is, the other planets in our solar system were allegedly formed by the same process which formed our own planet, earth.

Sound logical? It might have -- in the eighteenth century. Not today. Space exploration does not seem to support this.

EXPLORATION OF VENUS

On February 12, 1961, the Soviet Union launched Venera 1 into solar orbit, making it one of the earliest attempts to probe Venus. By the time Veneras 13 and 14 landed on Venus in early 1982, man had already landed several modules on Venus which relayed good data back to earth. Throughout these missions it became painfully clear to scientists that the real Venus had no resemblance to the Venus about which they had theorized before the probes.

Venus was once thought of as "earth's twin." It is our nearest neighbor in the solar system, and it is approximately the same size and density as earth. Although Venus intercepts twice as much sunlight as earth because it is closer to the sun, it was thought that its surface conditions were similar to earth's since the thick global clouds of Venus reflected most of the extra light. Scientists reasoned further that since earth and Venus condensed from the interstellar clouds of the same region in space their elemental composition must be roughly the same.

The theories about Venus went as far as saying that its atmosphere was made up of the same gases as that of earth, and one day on Venus was about the same length as a day on earth.

The picture we had of Venus was of a planet similar to earth except for something of a "murky jungle" spanning the entire globe. The impression scientists gave was that astronauts landing on Venus would need little more than London Fog coats.

As exploration of Venus proceeded, facts began replacing completely erroneous theories. Not only were conditions on Venus not what we had anticipated, but the data returned by the Venera and Mariner missions showed Venus to be so different that it appeared highly unlikely that earth and Venus could have evolved from the same gas clouds. We found Venus to be a far more hostile environment than the "murky jungle" we had envisioned.