We know that Venus has some sort of run-away green house effect in it's atmosphere. But at least it has one, unlike Mars, albeit very inhospitable to humans. Because it's size, mass and gravitational field is closer to Earths', Venus would be a perfect candidate for a terra-forming project. Plan a mission, develop the technology and go into space with the intention of redirecting an appropriately sized object (asteroid, comet chunk, etc.) into a collision course with Venus. The objective, of course, is to cause a nuclear winter which should allow the planet to cool, making it more conducive to exploration. I'm not suggesting that we wouldn't be opening a new "pandoras box" of conditions on the planet but could it be any worse than things are now?

chunks will fly off of venus and hit earth

Let's leave good enough alone shall we?

Directing a large enough asteroid into the inner solar system to have the kind of effect that you describe would be a monumental (and expensive) task and having done so, insuring it hit Venus INSTEAD of US would not be a certainty.

Remember the Mars orbiter that didn't quite make it into orbit due to a miscalculation of weight? Well, changing the path of an asteroid would also be based on applying a specific force on a specific vector for a specific time, all based upon its mass, velocity and orbit. A miscalculation of any of these (or a simple misfiring) would result in an unplanned trip through the inner solar system which we of course are one of the larger targets.

Assuming it hit Venus, the IMPACT on the Solar System is not quite so straight forward, we all interact with each other, so changing Venus (size, orbit etc) can cause corresponding changes to the Earth's orbit.

Finally the angle of impact with Venus could and would cause vastly different effects, including but not limited to, knocking a huge piece of it off and sending it our way.

I can see it now, a hunk of Venus collides with the moon turning both to dust. While having Rings instead of a moon might look pretty, life on this planet can not exist without the stabilizing influence of the moon.

So, no thanks, lets keep our cosmic meddling down to reasonable limits.

Arthur

Actually I don't think that would work, for the simple fact that Venus is NOT hot because of Solar radiation producing the greenhouse effect, as I have just read here, it is a combination of volcanic and solar energy that drives the runaway greenhouse effect with internal energy seemingly twice as important to the whole process as the sun.

But with the advent of genetic engineering it may be possible at some point in the near future to engineer an organism which could survive in parts of the planet and begin to process the CO2 in the atmosphere and lock it away as CaCO3, (calcium carbonate) or Calcium Silicate. Much as it has been done over the millennia on Earth. I think it would take that long... millenia!

Welcome aboard the Venus Express!!

The orbit of Venus should be changed. An Artificial Magnetic field should be placed through Venus and Venus should be accelerated away from the Sun by the magnetic coupling of a fusion engine or some other type of ionic engine. This process would take thousands and maybe millions of years but while it is happening other activities such as processing the atmosphere by microorganisms could occur. In the end Venus could possibly be a second home for the living organisms on this planet and could extend the time for life in this solar system.

is a good idea takeing forever but a good idea i agree with the other nerds we souldent mess with our precarious situation untill we can either practice moveing or teraforming planets somewere "safer" or we can ensure that we all dont have a 99.999999999.....% chance of smashing ourselves with another big rock, the other way around sounds better. but would be cool to see our sister planet in opposite orbit of us or us being moons of eachother i dont know what effect that would have if possible.

Don't use something huge. If you WERE going to smash it with something, do it with a bunch of small objects moving rather fast, rather than one gigantic rock, which while I kind of fun to think about is a little out of the question, though I think a more biological effect might be a little safer.

P.S. It took so long on earth because the organisms had to first evolve and then spread. If you seed the organisms onto the planet, it's possible to get it to happen in far less time. Although first you have to make sure that no microbes already exist in the atmosphere of Venus.

Actually, I started a thread about the "red rain" that fell over India 5 years ago. It would appear that biological cells of some sort may have fallen from a cometary fragment. This substance could already survive on Venus. Check out http://forum.physorg.com/index.php?showtop...t=0&#entry71774 and read the pdf.

Well, a counter earth like position, as in placing Venus in the same orbit as earth with the same speed but opposite of the Sun would be nice.

Cooling down Venus would help alot, maybe creating a very large solar sheet between venus and the sun to reflect the solar energy so Venus can cool down.

why not just move a lot of hydrogen to venus and mix it with a nickel catylist which would create H2O and methane. The water would cycle through the atmosphere cooling it and the pressure would drop significantly. The methane can be processed and made into usefull things. And the remaining CO2 could be processed into O2 and other things. Most of the secondary processes would be biological and therefore cheap. Moving all that hydrogen and nickel would be expensive.