Regarding Terraforming Venus: Why can't we plant modified plants to transform the CO2 into Oxygen?

Question

If we do that, wouldn't some of the Oxygen, being lighter then CO2, escape Venus, resulting in less pressure on the planet, resulting in a cooler Venus. From there, wouldn't that create a cooling cycle resulting in a terraformed Venus?

Thanks for your response.

Answer 1

The first problem would be to find some way to grow *any* plants on a planet where the surface temperature is around 900 Fahrenheit and the atmosphere contains a high volume of sulphuric acid.

Answer 2

The first problem with your question is to be able to have plants that can survive the intense heat on the surface, as well as be able to grow on basalt, which the crust is primarily made out of.

The other problems would be the rain on venus is sulfuric acid, which would carbonize anything organic. Even if you were somehow able to transform all of the CO2 in the atmosphere into O2, you've still got a lot of SOx to deal with which is why it rains sulfuric acid.

The higher O2 content wouldn't alleviate the high atmospheric pressure at all, even though it's lighter than CO2, because it can't reach escape velocity to escape from the planet's gravitational hold.

The plants couldn't be engineered to survive anywhere near the surface temperature of venus which runs an average of about 800c. 8x the required temperature to boil water at 1 atm of pressure. Most plants also require soil which venus doesn't have on it's surface, it's strictly volcanic rock from what previous land probes were able to determine before they were destroyed by the heat and pressure.

Answer 3

Jason T is correct in his assessment that plants need oxygen. But not all living things do. Certain extremophiles do quite well without oxygen. And the high temperature at the surface of Venus can be avoided by simply working on the upper atmosphere.

What we'd need, then, is a photosynthetic microbe that can "float" on the cloudtops. It would take in carbon dioxide and sunlight, and using anaerobic processes extract energy and release oxygen as a waste product. The only problem would be where the microbe would get water, which is the other necessary ingredient in photosynthesis.

Answer 4

Artist's impression of the surface of Venus
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Venus has a dense atmosphere, composed chiefly of carbon dioxide, which generates a surface pressure 90 times greater than that on Earth. This massive blanket of carbon dioxide is also responsible for a runaway greenhouse effect that heats the planet's surface to an average temperature of 467°C, hot enough to melt lead. As well Venus' atmosphere contains droplets of sulfuric acid along with compounds of chlorine and fluorine would kill most plants. In the upper part of the atmosphere, clouds swirl by at a rate of 300 km/h, driven by fierce winds
It would be a massive modification of plants to overcome these problems and at this stage the technology is not there to do it.

Answer 5

Venus is currently too hot for anything to live. And way too hot for liquid water to exist. In order for Venus to become livable for even the hardiest plants it needs to be cooled down to below boiling and the atmosphere needs to be cleaned out of its sulphurus clouds. Because almost no sunlight reaches the surface. You need to cool the planet down in order to terraform Venus. Plants won´t do it. Fortunately there is a way it can be done without even landing on the scorching surface.

You build a huge sunblocker at L1. You make it so big its diameter is equal to Venus itself. You build it in a grating array so that light is eavenly filtered down over all of Venus surface. If you are able to build this monster and you are able to block out atleast 88% of the light Venus will begin transforming into a second earth all by it self.

First temperatures will drop enough for the sulphuric acid to rain down on the surface. There it will react with the soil to form sulphates and water. Now the skies will begin to clear significantly and eventually it will become cool enough for water to condensate. As it rains down it will begin to dissolve oxides in the soil and carbondioxide from the atmosphere to form solid carbonates. This reaction happened on earth as soon as water began condensing. At the time earths atmosphere was very much like Venus with a surface pressure 70 times greater than now. On Venus it has always been too hot. But now this catalytic reaction will go on until there is either no more CO2 in the air or oxides in the soil.

Eventually Venus will get a temperature and atmospheric pressure similar to earths. There may not be anywhere near as much water as earth but it would cover Venus with an ocean 1 foot deep. That just might be enough for us humans and our plants. It will take a while before the new Venus air to become breathable but it´s a start.

Plants themselves would never be able to convert the harsh Venutian atmosphere from its current 90 times earth pressure and 96% CO2 by itself. Fortunatley the won´t have to. And oxygen, once it begins forming, wouldn´t escape. Venus is heavy enough to hold on to it. We know this because there is still nitrogen in Venus atmosphere. And nitrogen is lighter than oxygen. If you take into account that Venus atmosphere is much more massive than earths you realize that Venus has almost exactly the same amount of nitrogen in its atmosphere as earth suggesting that Venus hasn´t lost significant amounts of it.

So let´s go and terraform Venus! All that is needed is liquid water.

Answer 6

Venus' is a lot too warm to assist any existence. Its overall temperature is around 480 ranges Celsius, that's warm sufficient to bake a tree right into a crisp. to no longer point out Venus does not rain water, it rains sulfuric acid, which might additionally kill the tree.

Answer 7

What no-one seems to have noticed yet is that plants need oxygen as much as we do. Photosynthesis uses sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into glucose, which gets stored as starch. In order to survive and grow, the plant needs to use oxygen to break down the glucose to provide the energy needed for growth and reproduction. Put a plant in a pure carbon dioxide atmosphere and it will asphyxiate just as much as you would.

Answer 8

the plants would die in the super hot temperatures?

how would you "modify" these plants?

Braxton:

the sulfuric acid is in the clouds innit?

and the composition of venus's atmosphere is alike
~96.5% Carbon dioxide
~3.5% Nitrogen
.015% Sulphur dioxide
.007% Argon
.002% Water vapor
.0017% Carbon monoxide
.0012% Helium
.0007% Neon
trace Carbonyl sulfide
trace Hydrogen chloride
trace Hydrogen fluoride

Answer 9

Any plant placed on Venus would instantly be toasted to a crisp; the temperature there is hot enough to melt lead.

Answer 10

Venus is too close to the sun to be terraformed