Venus

As a kid, I thrilled to tales of adventure and Isaac Asimov's juvenile science fiction novel Lucky Starr and The Oceans of Venus.

But I have refused to give up on Venus.

For many of my peers though, Venus quickly lost its romance.

Measurements of density and composition implied that Venus originally formed out of basically the same stuff as Earth.

The sun was considerably less bright back then, so Venus was arguably a cozier habitat for life than earth.

The very first thing that scientists discovered with the mission to another planet was that Venus was not at all the earthly paradise that fiction had portrayed.

Thus, our picture of Venus at around the time life was getting started on Earth is one of warm oceans, probably rich with organic molecules, splashing around rocky shores and volcanic vents.

Venus has long been held up as a cautionary tale for everything that could go wrong on a planet like Earth.

We've grown so used to this orange haze that the original glory of an unlit night--dark enough for the planet venus to throw shadow on earth.