UFOs & Extraterrestrial Life

Star man wrote:

" I never believed in panspermia. The first life in the galaxy/universe had to have been indigenous to the planet(s) on which it appeared as it couldn't have come from elsewhere. And if life can arise without external "input" panspermia is superfluous--in addition to being highly improbable as it would probably take the lifetime of the galaxy for life to "float" from one planetary system to another. Impacts would be faster but probably sterilizing.I don't believe intelligent life or civilization are ephemeral. But you're right to assume I'm atheist. "

When we combine different theories , and they compliment each other ( including creationism of a sort ) , then we may be unto something . I saw a TV programme , that showed the formation of early planets and stars . In this early universe , and for several million years , conditions were very stable , as far as ambient temperature being about 20 Dec C . There was liquid water everywhere on these early planets . Perhaps with some carbon being present . So they suppose that the seeds of life or complex self replicating molecules came about . These were dormant afterwards , they existed everywhere , and when conditions were right , then gave rise to life . They did not have to all come from one particular place .

I also read that life on Earth started almost immediately after Earth cooled . There was a mathematical prediction that the rate  of evolution into multi-cell complex life , could predict that these single cell creatures , needed several billion years to achieve the degree of complexity . Far far earlier then the formation of the Earth . And going back to the early universe or goldilock universe .

Scientists tried to replicate the creation of life on Earth in a test tube . They failed , despite creating early conditions on Earth . If life came about on Earth from simple atoms by chemical reactions , gases , elements , lightening strikes , and radiation , then they should have been able to easily create simple life . The chemical reaction should have been immediate and repeatable . The reason they could not do this , just be that life did not emerge on Earth or Earth like planets . There must have been particular variables in the early universe that started this reaction . Something they are not aware of ?

So putting these jigsaw pieces together , they become complimentary . It seems life was started in the fastest , most efficient way in the universe , according to a preference for a particular plan ! Now this plan could be also our interpretation of an orderly universe that came about , rather than other universes . Strange that atomic particles have values , however improbable , that give rise to only this universe and no other !

KVS wrote :


" Panspermia just shifts the origin question to another location. Where would be the magic place in the universe that could "create life"?
Are there planets with mystical properties that are not available on Earth and similar planets? If one believes in creation by deity then
why look for other planets at all?"

like a magnificent farmer , the seed was already there to germinate , as soon as the fields were ready ! Early planets had different more stable conditions and water , even without a Sun , drawing energy from the ambient heat . It is more efficient to have an evolving system rather than to create individual parts . If such a thing was possible ? AI works like this .

Researchers long ago created organic molecules by replicating early earth conditions. But life, being more complex, would take longer; you can't expect to reproduce it in a simple experiment.

I know of no chemical reaction that has to take millions of years . Once the conditions are right , then it should happen quickly . Yes they did create big molecules , rather quickly , but not life . Therefore some variables are missing , not time . Conditions across space are generally stable , given definite epochs , during which " fast, " chemical reactions should predictably take place . Therefore it is a question of different physical environment , during evolution of universe . Are we going to find the seeds of life forming on the surface of early proto - planets ?

I know of no chemical reaction that has to take millions of years . Once the conditions are right , then it should happen quickly

In a lab the correct ingredients and conditions are created and the correct combinations of conditions are applied... the right air pressure and temperature and humidity and conditions and of course the right chemical compounds added in the correct quantities at the right rate in the correct order with other things happening at just the right time.

In the real world the number of variables and conditions means it might take millions of years for the right chemical compounds and temperatures and situations to be just right. The process might start a billion times and fail a billion times because something that needed to happen didn't or something did happen and stopped the process.

The story of evolution is essentially of a factory that makes billions and billions of products over and over and it is the faulty ones... the duds... that hold the design in their DNA... when the deviations turn out to be superior then they dominate the gene pool and change the dna of the species and branches evolve.

The absolute opposite of intelligent design.

The good luck method...

Pretty amazing that star dust can become self aware eventually... because that is what we are.

Hey, I believe in a God and still demand space exploration. Because the opposite can apply too, if you believe in nothing, and nothing matters, why explore?

Stardust would indicated we are simply all the same, we aren't.

But anyway, I want my little green guys. Come to earth already

Life is obviously not merely a chemical reaction. Just because you get amino acids by discharging a bolt of electricity (lightning) in a primordial medium,
does not mean you have achieved life.

My theory is that there were places where organized chemical systems could form and persist. In this environment there was a Gibbs free energy
minimization that enabled replication of RNA-like molecules. This was the critical step. There was evolution from this initial replication to more
complex replication where RNA appeared that encoded information beyond simple copying. Of course it is not clear what processes were involved.
Why did the RNA establish a closed off micro-environment with a casing (e.g. virus shell or cell wall) and establish a whole factory inside. Why not
just keep copying one type of molecule over and over. But natural selection kicks in under such conditions since resting on the ambient environment
is dicey and managing the resources is advantageous.

I do not think that viruses qualify for life since I cannot see how they formed early on. They are likely some degenerated bacterial parasite that adapted
to live off other cells. The objective is replication and viruses achieve this without running their own factory but hijacking other factories. But they
have not reverted to the primordial replication which likely was very localized to those special environments that I mention above. These environments
acted as an external support framework. Replication would not work everywhere.

There is some suggestion that sea bed fumaroles were origin environments.

Hey, I believe in a God and still demand space exploration. Because the opposite can apply too, if you believe in nothing, and nothing matters, why explore?

I am sure there is a lot of comfort to be had thinking there is an all powerful being watching over everything and guiding things according to their great plan, that the guilty are punished and the good are rewarded... but when you look around and see what goes on... good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good... but more importantly good and bad things happen... whether you believe in one god or many... you could argue the chosen people of Israel seem to suffer and inflict suffering far beyond what could be considered worth it... picking a god doesn't seem to protect you from the good or the bad... and more importantly sometimes the bad can be good and the good can be bad.

Win 50 million dollars on the lottery and the first time you say no to handing it out to everyone you know and they stop being a friend... you family breaks up, you gave up your job and now you are in a big house on your own.

Conversely you get cancer and realise you have a limited time left on the planet and you live your life and enjoy the things that are important... friends and family and you have the best 3 or 4 years of your life and then the worst few weeks when it finally take you.

Like that movie city of angels... an angel falls in love with a woman and gives up his immortality to spend a life with her and just after he stops being an angel she gets killed in an accident and he has to live the rest of a human life without her... not saying his life was ruined... but it changed dramatically from what he was hoping for, what he was planning for.

You don't need god to blame for your problems or thank for your blessings... shit happens and you just change your plans to deal with it.

Not that religion is all bad, but even the devout will break the rules when it suits them.

Stardust would indicated we are simply all the same, we aren't.

You are missing the point... stardust does not mean we are the same, it means we are made of the same stuff but the mix is always different and we are all different.

If you reduce a human being down to chemicals... indeed down to elements on the Mendeleev table... and piled them in heaps on a table, no two people will have exactly the same amounts of each element... but most importantly there is an enormous difference between elements sitting on a table and a living breathing human being... even when they are a democrat.

But anyway, I want my little green guys. Come to earth already

Actually that is probably more science than religion... most religions don't talk about aliens or other planets except those visible when those religions were created.

I just like to believe that there is something beyond just this life especially after we die, otherwise it's for naught.

As a great quote from Iron Maiden "It can't be all coincidence
Too many things are evident
You tell me you're an unbeliever
Spiritualist? Well, me I'm neither
But wouldn't you like to know the truth?
Of what's out there, to have the proof?"

I think, therefore I am. Garry

I guess spirituality is different than religion. Not all religions have a God as well or even one you need to pray to.  Also, people just far too often think that a God would be active in every portion of our lives and interfering. I don't believe that. I believe that we are set to our own devices. No intervention or interference.

With that said, people have believed in aliens for forever too. I never do think it would interfere in any belief.

Honestly, I don't know what would be scarier - if we are alone or not.

Then again, I'm a huge John Carpenter fan so....

This is offtopic now. Sorry.

But if there are aliens, my best guess would be something from "The Thing" more likely.

The conditions in the universe were predictable and stable , during different evolutionary epochs . New unexpected variables did not enter the equation . There was a time when conditions were just right for the formation of life . Once these primitive forms came about , then they could lay dormant until conditions were right again for growth .

And it may look as though this process must necessarily be accidental . Since many seeds landed on unfavourable areas and did not grow . But imagine a farmer spreading seeds on his farm . Some will fall on fertile ground and grow and some will not . But the effort in ensuring growth of every seed is not efficient use of energy . Far easier to insure fertile soil and plenty of seeds .

Early planets had different compositions , less dense and less heavy atoms , more gas and were subject to more radiation by numerous  Super - Nova . I don't know about Gibbs , but interesting idea . I think a computer model or AI , using the anthropomorphic principle , could come about with an evolutionary model of the universe , telling us more exactly why and where the conditions for life came about .

Agree that virus is a devolution of life , since without a host , it can not survive . Similar to fungi , that need a host . It is the chicken and Egg story . By logic , the first life form , was a chicken , already with an egg inside . Since an Egg can not hatch itself , even if came about by accident somehow . Hot sea vents , being a source are possible , since rocky planets are just as old as early gas planets ! About ten billion years ago .

Even if you do not believe in God , and believe in hard materialistic determinism , then surely for every event , there is a consequence . You will live on by the effects brought about through you ! Your children , ideas and the tree you planted will be your " material , " spirit that will live on . I'll have to look up Gibbs !

I just like to believe that there is something beyond just this life especially after we die, otherwise it's for naught.

Existence after death has nothing to do with religion... a made up god wont send you to heaven, nor will gods you don't believe in send you to their hell.

People who believe in this or that god or even this or that way of living are not protected from good or bad so how could such a thing determine what happens to You when your components stop supporting your current existence.

Heaven and hell are constructs by human beings as promises and carrots to follow a set of beliefs and a set of rules. it can't be you will find a dollar on the ground every two weeks.... it has to be big... you and all your family and friends and everyone you know and like and even your pets and favourite animals are going to go to heaven where there is always plenty of room for everyone... no eating or sleeping, no need for money, no pain and no humiliation.... for eternity.

Don't believe this or that then an eternity of pain and suffering in a fiery hell.

Pretty amazing reward... and pretty extreme punishment... especially for people who have never even heard of this particular religion you happen to be pedalling... and the fact that half your friends and family and even your pets might be a completely different religion for all you know.

Death is the next adventure... this is life... there are lots of choices and decisions you can make in life... some will lengthen it and some will end it quickly, but most you can't tell until you try them and it could go either way. Wearing a seatbelt... most of the time it saves lives... sometimes it traps you in a car that might be burning or sinking in deep water. Sometimes it prevents serious injury, other times it can cause death. Holding you in place when  you want to get out. Someone I knew was a truck driver and it is believe he fell asleep while driving up a winding gorge... from the scene it seems his truck went off the road and he fell out the door and the last set of wheels ran over him and killed him. Of course the problem was that he fell asleep on a difficult piece of road and if he had been wearing his seat belt he might not have survived either...

Life.

We can't know what death is like because living people have only seen short glimpses of it... do you think a caterpillar... a tube of muscle with a mouth and an arse that just eats and eats and eats and hopes nothing finds it before it follows its instincts and builds itself a cocoon and then darkness and change... and the next thing you know it has beautiful wings and antenna and eyes and it can fly... and then it hits a spiders web.

The caterpillar has no idea about the life as an egg or as a butterfly and the butterfly likely has no memories as an egg or a catepillar... who knows what happens to it when it then dies... but in a sense you could say it has already died twice... that is not religion, that is science.

Not trying to change your views or influence you, if you believe what you believe and it makes sense to you, or you don't think anything else makes better sense than what you think then that is just fine,  but it is all sales and marketing... not for your soul, but for your effort and support and your money and time.

With that said, people have believed in aliens for forever too. I never do think it would interfere in any belief.

Isn't it odd though that religions talk about humans and the animals... but not alien species that would include other animals and other currently dominant species that could be the equivalent to humans on other planets. In fact the whole universe seems to be located here on earth... an all powerful god only put life on one planet and only talks about one planet... you would think after 13 billion years there would be billions of galaxies teeming with life flourishing and spreading willy nilly this way and that and Earth would be welcomed with open arms as the new branch of the religion... ohh, you believed the one about the goats did you... ahh... that is interesting...

Ironically believing and following the words of Iron Maiden is a good example... songs are the poetry of the modern age so really you are just listening to a famous poet that has a large following. How much would there need to be for them to release a set of moral rules to live by and stories that show their view of things and what happens if you don't follow their path and what happens if you do.

Honestly, I don't know what would be scarier - if we are alone or not.

There we go... if we are alone... how precious is life and how precious is our environment... people scoff at flights to mars or flights to the moon but it is all about learning to live using the minimum of resources and reusing what we can in places and environments where resources and things are not abundant like here on earth. Of course as we pollute and destroy fresh water and clean air and food resources are declining. Learning the fix things, clean things, be sustainable and responsible are important goals that we need to learn if we are to survive on earth and to spread through this part of the universe..

Of course no matter the model of the universe that is all going to end eventually... how can heaven or hell continue after the universe itself has gone dark and cold and expanded to the point where matter collapses or disintegrates... subatomic particles return to energy...

But if there are aliens, my best guess would be something from "The Thing" more likely.

The problem there would be the need to retain intelligence and have complete control of your own DNA down to the cellular level, but to be able to instantly change from one cell structure to another... skin cells turning into claws or hair or eyeballs... like most religions... a fun story but difficult to actually believe it could actually happen for real.

The sheer luck of human life evolving in this solar system is so amazing that you would think it would never happen, but life itself has happened trillions of times on earth where things are just right, and on another planet of moon where things are just right or only sort of right it should happen if you give it long enough... the point is that there are more galaxies in this universe than there are grains of sand in the world and in each of those galaxies there are more stars than there is sand on any beach you have ever visited and around those stars are likely more planets than stars.... so just talking about odds and chances I would say the chances of life in MOST galaxies is actually probably close to CERTAIN.  The real problem there is whether there is intelligent life that hasn't destroyed itself yet and again the numbers would suggest there are probably dozens to thousands in each stable galaxy more than 3-4 billion years old... it sounds like there was life on earth a couple of billion years after things settled and it has been trying to kick start ever since.

The worst thing is that time and space separates us so without Dr Whos Tardis we might never meet up with any of them... in which case perhaps we should have a bit more respect for the other people here and this thin blue line between rock and the vacuum of space and take more measures to make this place better and safer and cleaner and more suitable for us to expand and grow and develop and mature. Killing ourselves because of stupid growing pains or to stop others developing faster and past us like the US is currently trying would be a really sad reason to fail. But currently the most likely reason for us to fail ATM.

The Fly, The Thing and other Hollywood fantasy are unphysical. Suppose one could change the DNA in every cell. That would not result in
a whole new organism poofing into existence. It would mean death just like changing out all the bricks from a house would cause it to collapse.
If you look at caterpillar to butterfly transformation, you see the caterpillar turning into a liquid inside the cocoon. The butterfly grows essentially
from scratch. This is really the only solution to the metamorphosis problem. The idea that whole new structures emerge in seconds is nonsense.
It's just scifi magic.

in The Thing, it was DNA retaining structure from other life forms it came into contact with, and mimic it. It wasn't "poof". It is even mentioned in the book "who goes there" kinda explains it.

Did you watch it?

As for GarryB

The problem is you assume far too much, without understanding what I am saying. I don't follow advice or anything, simply I use examples to others that I share a similar viewpoint with. What is funny, your belief is just that, a belief. Much like almost everything else we are experiencing now. Science will change, and peoples perception will change. Some of the smartest people believed in something, yet were pretty strict in scientific structure.

So, to each their own. But don't judge me regarding something I said and assume you have me figured out, because you are further from the truth there.

Also, speaking of faith, you seem to have a strong faith in Mikoyan MiG-35 when there is no evidence of it. So yeah.

We are also talking of theories and nothing set in stone either, so its all pointless regardless and no proof of any of it anyway.

So its obviously a joke thread and a good way to engage peoples beliefs. Be it in aliens, or be it in existence and faith.

Also, speaking of faith, you seem to have a strong faith in Mikoyan MiG-35 when there is no evidence of it. So yeah.

If you are suggesting I can be wrong, of course I can be wrong, but the entire fundamental basis for a light fighter or cheap numbers fighter is for real peer to peer combat where numbers matter and the top quality of the platforms you buy can actually be detrimental.

If Russia only makes Su-57s then HATO will always outnumber them and win.... Russia uses T-62s and T-72s in the Ukraine because numbers matter and even a drone can take out the best armoured vehicle so being in a T-62 with extra armour and ERA and cage armour etc etc is not that big a deal where numbers are more important.

The same with Iskander... a cheap simple ballistic version with three or four times the range makes good sense because the normal models can destroy the air defences and the cheap numbers version can destroy the actual targets

And besides if cheaper lighter numbers aircraft don't make sense then cancel the Su-75 because that is what that is.

Anyway... back on topic... check this out... it will impress you or confuse you...



New missions to Venus are a good idea with new high res cameras...

https://youtu.be/KdUGw1k4J04  https://youtu.be/H4AxRTzASxE

jump to zuggurat on the far side of the Moon-
https://youtu.be/tF8mJl_O_-k?list=PLC_WFVOH2WJRyUYUBzfckwhOrCinJKsBG&t=4251

https://youtu.be/h6IMyCP4ySg  https://youtu.be/AbkqA9WmQKM

https://youtu.be/X1syNxuxXyQ?list=PLC_WFVOH2WJQ2excQLAl19ac6DPTy6gUn

https://youtu.be/U4UX-a4igZQ?list=PLC_WFVOH2WJQ2excQLAl19ac6DPTy6gUn

https://youtu.be/nQYkbt8oooA?list=PLC_WFVOH2WJQ2excQLAl19ac6DPTy6gUn

https://youtu.be/cPu_Cz28liQ?list=PLC_WFVOH2WJQ2excQLAl19ac6DPTy6gUn

https://youtu.be/Z5xJqQGSrvg?list=PLC_WFVOH2WJQ2excQLAl19ac6DPTy6gUn

https://youtu.be/LCNnnNR60Sc?list=PLC_WFVOH2WJQ2excQLAl19ac6DPTy6gUn

https://youtu.be/_clubuuJ5wM?list=PLC_WFVOH2WJQ2excQLAl19ac6DPTy6gUn

https://youtu.be/77HNVY1gjPI?list=PLC_WFVOH2WJQ2excQLAl19ac6DPTy6gUn

https://youtu.be/QKE7lFraQeo?list=PLC_WFVOH2WJQ2excQLAl19ac6DPTy6gUn

https://youtu.be/zhDetUWB3iw?list=PLC_WFVOH2WJQ2excQLAl19ac6DPTy6gUn

https://youtu.be/6XiCZHcbISI  https://youtu.be/rBzlHNJ_T_s

https://youtu.be/0N4PG2AsNNs?t=423

The premise of the alien in "The Thing" is absurd. It could transform instantaneously into anything. No mass conservation and no energy
conservation at all. Just magic DNA. DNA cannot produce new physics. This is why the premise of X-Men is absurd as well.

Can a computer programme , correct for the red shift in radio signals ? I heard that very distant radio signals from stars , get completely scrambled by red shift . Interesting idea here , radio being useful for near objects . It is narrow band ! The likelihood of a nearby star to the Sun , having life is high , since it shares similar evolution timescales  and chemistry . Is the surface of Venus soft ? Should not the " Crab , " leave footprints , if it is not bad CGI ?

There are plenty of things we can't explain here on earth and lots of places where the experts claimed nothing could survive because of the very high temperatures or high pressure or high acidity or combinations of those and other issues... but then they started detecting gasses in Venus's atmosphere that as far as we know are only created by biological processes... I think it was a combination of Phosphorus and hydrogen... something like PH3 or some such thing that is generated by bacteria in very low oxygen environments.... which is what is present on Venus.

Talk of the clouds a few hundred kms up where the air pressure is comparable to the pressure on the earths surface and the temperature is 20-30 degrees C... the sort of thing you could use balloons to investigate and explore... and with it up rather high out of most of the atmosphere you could make something solar powered...

The premise of the alien in "The Thing" is absurd. It could transform instantaneously into anything. No mass conservation and no energy
conservation at all. Just magic DNA. DNA cannot produce new physics. This is why the premise of X-Men is absurd as well.

Even if it was as fast as 3D printing it would be too slow to be very useful but essentially it is what people are doing over time... in colder climate they get shorter and in hot climates they get taller... food availability has an influence there too of course...

Fakes can be very convincing, but keeping an open mind is important... which is why I don't dismiss religion as being totally useless... many have codes of conduct that are actually quite good... if only the people who followed that religion actually adhered to them...

The truth under all conditions . No " white , " lies . After so many years the failings at one American nuclear missile silo , attributed to the presence of UFO , is now believed to be because the silo was connected to the main power grid , and it failed and turned on or shut down several nukes ! The UFO , story was a cover story , new declassified documents show . Similar claims for Soviet missiles also exist .

https://www.theufochronicles.com/2010/10/twenty-year-civilian-veteran-of.html

Despite three flights in 2021, SOFIA couldn't detect phosphine in the Venusian atmosphere, so the previous announcement of its presence may have been an error. Btw while methane spikes suggest the existence of microbes on Mars, the gas may have a nonbiological explanation.

@nomadski

For signals within a reasonable time frame (less than 100 light-years) the red shift is not an issue. We are talking about sub-galaxy distances and
not inter-galactic distances. Getting a signal from a far away galaxy is basically worthless. It is also nearly impossible since 1/r^2 is a bitch.
I can't believe that people think we can get coherent signals from the back ground noise. Some notional civilization on a planet around some
yellow star which is putting out radio waves will be buried in the noise of their star and its neighbourhood stars.

Maybe if they sent a precise stream of photons of an unusual wavelength straight at Earth we could get information out of the noise.

BTW, radio waves emitted by humans at the surface still have to get through our ionosphere which means that they will non-elastically scatter off
ions and get attenuated. For some reason the ionization of the gases between us and the remote hypothetical civilization is not considered.
This will work nicely to make any signal into noise.

The main problem with Venus is once we found out what conditions are like on the surface we lost interest... or should I say the west lost interest and the Soviets took up the challenge but stopped when the Cold War ended.

Ironic, the Cold War led to landing things on the hottest planet in the solar system...

But now we know that bacteria and even animals can survive at enormous pressures and very high temperatures and high acidity environments... there are bacteria living near volcanically active areas deep underwater with no sunlight and high pressure. Crab like creatures live and survive by eating that bacteria.

The real question is... did the bacteria evolve first and then crabs from other environments moved in to that environment or did they evolve down there.

As it mentions in the video above Venus is actually a better candidate for terraforming in the sense it has an atmosphere that would allow life in airships initially and then growing bacteria to convert the gasses would allow temperatures to reduce and pressure to fall and some surface activity to take place in some regions.

A nuclear space tug that can be remotely flown through Jupiters outer atmosphere to collect enormous volumes of hydrogen delivered to Venus or perhaps a nuclear space tug heading out to the Oort cloud to drag a mountain sized lump of ice to drop on Venus... a bit of planetary engineering...

The high average temperatures when the Dinosaurs were wandering around led to creatures surviving that simply could not survive today, and also creatures getting much bigger than they otherwise could.

In comparison we were probably some small rodent like mammal that spent most of its time trying to evade the big scary lizards.

I like the idea of terraforming Venus better than terraforming Mars because Venus is much more like earth in terms of size and surface gravity. Inevitably, though, it would be a daunting challenge taking thousands of years. It's not just lowering atmospheric pressure and reducing CO2, and getting hydrogen to combine with oxygen to form water. Somehow you'd have to greatly cut down on incoming solar heat--by around 50%. Maybe some kind of giant parasol would do it, but you'd have to keep it steadily in place between Venus and the sun.

The point is that thinking about changing things on a planetary scale might be useful for earth at some time in the future if it gets too hot or too cold.

For Mars the solutions are tricky because thin atmosphere is thin atmosphere.

A super high carbon content on Venus could be as simple as some device that separates carbon atoms from oxygen atoms that leaves the carbon as a solid and of course oxygen on its own would be a gas. The core problem there would be a serious need for plants to process that oxygen because oxygen is too reactive and would be deadly to human and earth life at very high concentrations. Fire would be a serious risk and lead to the creation of carbon monoxide which degrade into carbon dioxide over time again. There was a time on earth when there was no free oxygen in the earths atmosphere and it is believed bacteria processed it using photosynthesis to extract carbon from the atmosphere and released large concentrations of oxygen, which killed off a lot of the other bacteria around at the time for which the oxygen was toxic.

The problem with changing the chemical balance of the environment is that anything that started will likely be killed by the changes if they can't adapt quickly enough.

This applies to everything and is something Human beings should be wary of.

Of course examining the environment... making sure there are no alien spacecraft full of human head sized eggs that you corrupt company bosses order you to go and investigate.... hang on... wait a minute.... nuke it from orbit first and then deal with Mothra and Godzilla later on....

Airships would be an interesting technology because you could float in the atmosphere, using solar panels for power and using hydrogen fuel cells and hydrogen gas in the envelope for lift and as water for ballast... of course not as simple as in the atmosphere in earth because you would need to store the water and the hydrogen but also the oxygen if you want to convert the hydrogen to water again.

Of course you could probably use nitrogen gas as the lifting gas and a solar panel powered compressor to maintain lifting performance with nitrogen gas and compressed nitrogen as ballast... depending on the altitude you wanted to operate in.

There seems to be a band of clouds that contain sulphuric acid so avoiding that layer would be a good idea, but having bacteria on the airship that uses the local gases carbon dioxide, and sunlight to create oxygen, could start to transform the atmosphere a tiny bit at a time... it would be interesting to monitor the effects of oxygen trickling down into the atmosphere and how that changes the layers below. Of course adding large amounts of hydrogen... either gas or from a comet sized lump of ice would also be very interesting too... but examining the surface would also be interesting... the super dense atmosphere should allow wings and air braking to be effective for landing things on the surface... this is more interesting than going to mars IMHO... a real challenge...

I would say reducing carbon dioxide levels well below what we have on Earth might be enough... remember Earth can shift between ice ball temperatures to rather hot depending on the CO2 concentrations and other factors...

With airships floating around the upper layers they might have to do extra work to effect the layers... perhaps when the oxygen gets created by the bacteria it might have to be launched up into near space to super cool it to make it heavy enough to fall down far enough to reach the ground level to have any effect.

Cream poured into a hot cup of coffee remains on the top and oxygen might not be heavy enough on its own to descend to ground level... as it heats up as it trickles down it might stop descending well before it reaches anywhere near ground level. Putting it into an insulated container and cooling it down so you can get a lot of oxygen in there in say liquid form and then with that weight it will push down through the dense air... the air pressure at ground level is the equivalent of the pressure at 900m under water on earth, so if you can imagine for a human being that would actually take a lot of work to swim down that deep, fighting buoyancy.

A bowl of liquid oxygen would have the weight to descend and when it gets to the ground the heat would obviously burst the container and release the liquid, which would rapidly turn into a gas at that temperature... I assume, but as it heats up would it go up or down?

Lots of very interesting experiments would need to be done in a lab at high pressures and high temperatures to work it all out... I would find that to be fascinating... and fun.

This is interesting... had heard of the goldilocks zone for planets in a planetary system but not for galaxies...