[259/366] Venus
Sep. 15th, 2020 05:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguistI had the interview, I don't think it went well at all but I'll know in a few days.
innerbrat expressed interest in my interview outfit so here it is...or, the part that's presentable; I have neither trousers nor shoes smart enough for in-person interviews so it's a good thing those won't be happening to me!) so here it is.
I'd rather talk about Venus.
Venus! Maybe there's life on Venus? I really hope there's life on Venus, for the very selfish reason that I hate, haaaate, the idea of the Habitable Zone.
Like, I know we can't search easily for life we don't know the signs of (how do you even begin to do that? much less know when or if you've succeeded! it's hard to make such a thing fit a SMART goal, never mind the scientific method). But still, scientists talk about "Earth-like planets" and "well obviously liquid water has to be present" like they're the only way to have life, which I think is both boring and limiting.
If Venus was a newly-discovered exoplanet (a planet around another star, not in our solar system), Earth's scientists would immediately write it off. Like not even "wow, what a challenge this would be at our current understanding," but just "nope, no chance." And I know this is because science runs on funding and media attention and those things reinforce each other.
The received wisdom, which doesn't feel true to me but I have only the small biased sample of me and my friends to combat it, is that people are only going to care about life that is recognizable or understandable to a non-scientist earthling. It's like the "charismatic megafauna" problem on a planetary scale.
But! If we find life on Venus, our next-door twin-sister planet, something we're all used to hearing about and can even see in the sky so easily it's regularly mistaken for UFOs, that gives something for our earthling brains to relate to, a hook to hang future funding applications off. It would present a narrative that could help us look at more Venus-like worlds, and there seem to be a lot more places with its roiling hellscape of extreme temperatures and pressure, smothering greenhouse gases, constant lightning, sulfuric acid rain, etc. than there are other Earths.
innerbrat expressed interest in my interview outfit so here it is...or, the part that's presentable; I have neither trousers nor shoes smart enough for in-person interviews so it's a good thing those won't be happening to me!) so here it is.I'd rather talk about Venus.
Venus! Maybe there's life on Venus? I really hope there's life on Venus, for the very selfish reason that I hate, haaaate, the idea of the Habitable Zone.
Like, I know we can't search easily for life we don't know the signs of (how do you even begin to do that? much less know when or if you've succeeded! it's hard to make such a thing fit a SMART goal, never mind the scientific method). But still, scientists talk about "Earth-like planets" and "well obviously liquid water has to be present" like they're the only way to have life, which I think is both boring and limiting.
If Venus was a newly-discovered exoplanet (a planet around another star, not in our solar system), Earth's scientists would immediately write it off. Like not even "wow, what a challenge this would be at our current understanding," but just "nope, no chance." And I know this is because science runs on funding and media attention and those things reinforce each other.
The received wisdom, which doesn't feel true to me but I have only the small biased sample of me and my friends to combat it, is that people are only going to care about life that is recognizable or understandable to a non-scientist earthling. It's like the "charismatic megafauna" problem on a planetary scale.
But! If we find life on Venus, our next-door twin-sister planet, something we're all used to hearing about and can even see in the sky so easily it's regularly mistaken for UFOs, that gives something for our earthling brains to relate to, a hook to hang future funding applications off. It would present a narrative that could help us look at more Venus-like worlds, and there seem to be a lot more places with its roiling hellscape of extreme temperatures and pressure, smothering greenhouse gases, constant lightning, sulfuric acid rain, etc. than there are other Earths.