Since the dawn of the Space Age, perhaps no celestial
body in the solar system has proved more surprising to
astronomers than the
planet Venus.
Before the arrival of the earliest space probes, some
noted scientists believed that Venus would be earthlike,
with water clouds, oceans and abundant vegetation.
However, well known to those who have followed this
series, it was Dr.
Immanuel Velikovsky who
made the outrageous prediction that Venus would be
superhot, based on his hypothesis of the planet's
recent, cometary origins.
Today, countless Venusian phenomena continue to puzzle
planetary scientists, including,
-
the planet's super fast winds
-
its odd, slow backward spin
-
its vast magnetotail
-
even the recent discovery by the ESA's Venus Express
spacecraft of a surprisingly powerful electric field
In
recent decades, Wal Thornhill, Chief Science Advisor of
The Thunderbolts Project, has outlined his own
reconstruction of Venus' role in the recent,
extraordinary history of the solar system.
In Part One of this two-part presentation, Wal begins by
recounting this history, which he offered in his 2004
article, Cassini's Homecoming, which he wrote prior to
the arrival of the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft at Saturn.
And
as Thornhill explains, while astronomers to this day
refer to Venus as 'Earth's twin,' the most likely
Venusian sibling may be found in the Saturnian system -
that is, the
moon Titan.
