ASTA01H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Radar Detector, Catastrophism, Uniformitarianism
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Lecture 6 in class film notes on messenger. *evan, please add your ipad notes and edit what follows as necessary. Potential test question : venus- uniformitatianism vs catastrophism. Earth and venus were formed at about the same point in time in history. This suggests that they must have similar properties, and they do: about the same size and mass, and both have an atmosphere. However, earth can support life and venus cannot. Venus is closer to the sun than earth, which makes it 90 degrees hotter than the surface of the earth. This permits ice and water to melt off of the surface. Hydrogen is lost, becomes greenhouse gas, makes surface hotter, more evaporation. Carbon dioxide buildup in the atmosphere is transparent to solar radiation, and the more radiation there is, the more heat there is. If earth was slightly closer to the sun, the melting of water would cause the same fate as what happened to venus.
