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Life on Venus - pictures prove it?

I've had enough of stories about piracy, digital rights and the USA's attempts to exert its legal muscle in areas that ought to be outside its jurisdiction. I've also had enough of idiots who think it's okay to make a fortune by pretending to run a legit business while really promoting the widespread infringement of copyright.

So today I have some news -- a Russian scientist claims to have discovered signs of life on the planet Venus.

In fact, he has pictures.

These aren't new pictures, they were taken back in 1982 by the probe Venus 13 which performed a landing on the planet, sending back images for a brief period before succumbing to the intense heat and pressure.

The pictures have been (re)published in today's edition of the UK's Daily Mail "news"paper.

You have to admit -- they do seem pretty unusual although personally, I'm not convinced that they are more than some kind of anomalous effect.

Having said that, it would be foolish to rule out the possibility that they may actually show some kind of living organism, despite what would appear to be an incredibly hostile environment.

To their surprise, scientists have found complex life-forms surviving at not too dissimilar temperatures and pressures, around volcanic vents deep in the earth's oceans. Surely, if life can adapt and survive to live there, the prospect of Venusian creatures is not too much of a stretch.

And if, as some suggest, Venus was once a planet much like our earth -- with temperatures and pressures that allowed the presence of liquid water, the possibility of life still existing is even greater.

Experts believe it's possible that Venus underwent a form of thermal runaway, driven by a build-up of CO2 like the one currently alleged to be responsible for our own planet's global warming. If this greenhouse effect occurred slowly enough, it's not impossible that some of the life-forms which may have existed at the time were able to adapt to the increasing heat and pressure to the extent that they still survive to this day.

Or I guess the whole thing could be a giant hoax.

Whatever the case, I figured it was worth a look and made a rather pleasant and intriguing diversion from matters "Dotcom".

Life on Venus -- likely? Possible? Impossible?

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