Our solar system is home to an array of wonderful, strange, and fascinating planets. The first one in the ole’ fanciful group that makes up our solar system is Mercury.
A planet that may one day collide with Venus, Earth, Mars, fall into the Sun, or get thrown out of the system entirely thanks to Jupiter, Mercury’s a barren, rocky planet with temperatures that vary greatly. The side that faces the Sun can reach up to 800 degrees Fahrenheit (or 427 degrees Celsius). On the other side (quite literally), the temperature reaches a generally acceptable -280 degrees Fahrenheit (or -180 Celsius). All in all, it’s probably not a place you want to reside on without the proper suntan lotion or comfy snow gear.
The second planet is Venus. Known for being the only planet to orbit backwards and sometimes referred to as “Earth’s Evil Twin” because the two are generally similar in size (with our evil twin being only slightly smaller), Venus has a magnificently weird history. Its surface is hidden behind clouds, which led some astronomers to believe that the planet may have had a lush jungle, potentially even having been populated by dinosaurs or some other primordial life.
As most of you may know however, this isn’t the case. Venus is arguably the most hostile planet in the solar system, With a temperature that ranges from 827 to nearly 900 degrees Fahrenheit (441 to 482 degrees Celsius), Venus really does a disservice to its Roman Goddess namesake. Beautiful she is not; Venus is a planet where the heat is trapped in the planet thanks to the thick clouds. Sulfuric gasses toxify what little air there is and if you were to not be burned to death, the extreme pressure of the atmosphere would squish you like a bug.
Despite that, some say we may be able to one day go ballooning into the skies of Venus. Plan your trip now!
Ahem, anyways, the third planet is Earth. It isn’t flat, next.
The fourth planet is Mars. Known as the red planet, it’s the most habitable planet outside of Earth, though it’s still not exactly prime real estate. While the temperature can reach upwards of 70 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius), it can drop to about -225 degrees Fahrenheit (-153 degrees Celsius). Despite such frigid temperatures, a great many hope that we will colonize it within the coming decades. Alas, if we do, those people aren’t coming back—ever. That’s if they even make it there alive.
Residing in the asteroid belt and generally not considered a planet is Ceres. I honestly have no idea if this place is habitable, let alone even stable given I imagine it’s possible that Jupiter could throw it in any direction it pleases. Though hey, that’s just my wild imagination being itself.
Speaking of Jupiter, that’s the fifth planet. Occasionally known as “Earth’s Guardian Angel”, Jupiter’s the first gas giant in our solar system, the largest planet overall, and is generally pretty fascinating. It also has numerous moons, but they aren’t exactly ripe for colonization, though Callisto, Ganymede (to a very slim degree), and Europa have been floated around (no pun intended) to be colonized. Some also suspect that Europa may have life beneath its surface thanks to a possible subterranean ocean. We’ll be covering Europa far, far more next year if I get the time.
The sixth planet is Saturn. Sometimes believed to be the home to a figure (or figures) from the Biblical Book of Revelation, Saturn’s as famous for its conspiratorial elements as it is for being capable of floating on water if any place could hold it! Like Jupiter, Saturn also has a lot of moons. Also like Jupiter, most aren’t really good in the way of real estate value, though Titan and Enceladus are possible candidates to reside on. Every look up at the rings, they’re gorgeous! Man, I’m glad I paid $83,000,000,000 to live on a moon in the middle of space!
The seventh planet is the unfortunately named Uranus. It floats like a bowling ball and while it’s the subject of numerous immature jokes, Uranus is a possible mining site for helium-3. As such, some of its moons could become bases of operation—assuming anyone wants to work there since they’d be ridiculed for working near Uranus. Harhar.
The eighth and final planet is my personal favorite: Neptune. A vibrant, beautiful planet, Neptune has no surface, but one of its moons—Triton—is a possible habitable celestial body. That is, assuming we have the proper protection so we don’t end up freezing to death. The temperature can drop to nearly -400 degrees Fahrenheit (-240 degrees Celsius). Brrr!
Beyond this, there’s what are known as trans-Neptunian objects. Most of these are comets, dwarf planets, or objects within the Oort Cloud. The first of these is Pluto, the former ninth planet of our solar system. It’s generally debated on if it should be reclassified as a planet because of nostalgia—it’s also not habitable because it’s ridiculously cold and about as dead as Jimmy Hoffa.
Eris is up next. Once known as Planet X because it was considered the tenth planet, Eris is also a barren land of whatever and probably can’t be populated. Though I honestly wish it had kept its name of Xena.
The fantastically bizarre Haumea is up next. An elongated planet that looks something like an oval, this planet’s rapid rotation has caused it to become what I’d consider the most unique planet in our solar system. Honestly, I hope it’s habitable because of how weird it looks.
Beyond this are simplistic dwarf planets: Makemake, Quaoar, Orcus, and Sedna being the only ones that I have any knowledge of. According to Wikipedia, there are some others: Gonggong, Salacia, and 2002 MS4 being a few. However, beyond Sedna (which is the farthest known dwarf planet from the Sun overall, is even redder than Mars, and having an orbital period of 11,400 years), they’re all uninhabitable and can be disregarded. I simply took the time to go over the previous three dwarf planets as they felt noteworthy. Two are well-known and one is weirdly shaped.
So where am I getting with this? Well, the planets of our solar system are diverse if nothing else, but they aren’t exactly the place where you’d think life would exist outside of Earth and maybe, in the past, Mars. Though some claim that on the surface of Venus, there’s a scorpion. What makes people say that? Well, if you looked at the header image, you’d see. So let us talk about the supposed Venusian Scorpion.
The Story
There was a scorpion that was supposedly found on Venus. This was claimed by a Russian scientist. Let’s move onto the theories.
The Story (For Real)
The idea of life on Venus is something that made me do a triple take. At first, I thought this story was made up on a satirical website. Then I thought it was made by a satirical website and someone at some news outlets—albeit ones that wouldn’t fall under the umbrella of “reputable”—picked it up because they didn’t do their homework. Finally, I gave in and decided that it was worth covering since it seemed like it was at least bizarre enough to at least take a little gander at.
There are a few places that have bits of information on this story, though the Huffington Post is the one that has the most thorough article on it. Other places to report on this story are the Daily Mail (which is so widely disliked that even Wikipedia won’t accept it as a valid source) and RT (the Russian Times, an outlet generally deemed to be state propaganda). Though enough dillydallying, let’s look at the story itself.
Our story was first reported on in March of 2012 and comes to us from a man named Leonid Ksanfomaliti. He served as a scientist during the time of the Soviet Union way back in 1982. Well, according to Mr. Ksanfomaliti, there is a video, which lasts around 26 minutes, from a probe (specifically the Venus-13) that showcased a creature which resembles a scorpion. This scorpion was likely doing comrade Stalin proud by spreading glorious communism to the denizens of Venus. All zero of them because nothing can grow on there and those waiting in the breadlines were all dead from suffocating because there’s no oxygen on Venus.
There’s literally nothing.
It’s Venus.
Other Russian scientists agree with my 17,000 IQ assessment, such as Aleksandr Bazilevsky. Although he stated that Ksanfomaliti is a “true, serious scientist”, he stated:
Life forms we are familiar with are protein-based and they would never survive on Venus.
Other scientists, such as the ones at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (better known as NASA) pointed out that it was likely a lens cap and film noise (basically, the camera was being crushed because Venus’ atmosphere will crush nearly everything that enters it). Ksanfomaliti disagreed though. To shamelessly steal the quote from the HuffPo article:
Without going into the present conception that life would be impossible on Venus given its conditions, we can take a long shot and say that the given morphological characteristics allow us to assume that certain objects [registered on the planet’s surface] have qualities of living beings. They emerge, fluctuate and disappear.
Ksanfomaliti claims that it’s possible there were even more of these creatures, but they were scared off. This one in particular was either too stupid to flee, got sent into shock, or was caught in the moment. I have no idea, but it’s pretty lucky that it was the only one to not waddle off into the lush paradise that is Venus.
That is, by and large, the entire story. From what I can tell, the story largely ends there because Venus isn’t exactly an easy planet to explore. That, coupled with how there’s more or less nothing of merit to find there given what mainstream science dictates (see: nothing can survive there) leaves people like Ksanfomaliti as the minority when putting forward expeditions to explore the hellish planet. So with that, I think it’s safe to simply move onto the theories section. To infinity and beyond!
Theories
1. It was alien life
Before we get into this theory, I want to imagine our little scorpion-alien friend dancing to Motörhead’s Ace of Spades until he gets crushed by the probe. It’s a funny mental image and basically: someone please make this.
So anyways, our first theory is that the thingamajig in the image that you can see is our header image is in fact an alien. What’s the proof? Beats the living heck out of me. Some folks out there simply want to believe that ayy lmaos are real and that they live in our solar system. While I personally believe that we aren’t alone in this universe, I think the odds of it being in our solar system is slim—and I mean slim.
Alas, I’m just one paltry, pitiful, dumb human who can’t even probe lesser races because he doesn’t have a sick, suped up Fordaristialshka ZXT9300 with Intergalactic Super-Mega-Ultra-Giga-Hyperdrives. So who am I to question the existence of alien life on Venus when I can’t even warp jump from the Milky Way to the Andromeda in .110 nanoseconds? Exactly, I’m not, so let’s move on.
Oh wait, the evidence. Well, there is the claim of Ksanfomaliti. His word is something that will vary very, very heavily on who you are. There have been many supposed “former” NASA/CIA/other Federal officials who have said that there is proof of alien life that’s been stored away. Heck, just recently, an Israeli official said that the aliens wanted to be kept a secret. Though the odds of it being taken serious by the majority is tinier than the Tiny Dancer that Elton John sings about.
Now we can move onward!
2. It was a lens cap
The second theory is one that NASA officials have posited: the lens cap to the probe fell off while landing. The supposed movement originated from “noise” in the film, which made it appear as though the “scorpion” was moving.
You’re bound to encounter one of two rebuttals to this: either NASA is trying to silence the ever-so truthful Russians who are in no way, shape, or form making complete asses of themselves (no offense to my Russian readers) or NASA is just that astronomically stupid (pun intended; fight me). No matter which you come across, the odds of this being the case are actually pretty good.
Given that Venus has a surface temperature that can melt lead with ridiculous ease, it serves to reason that the cap would’ve probably come under the effects of Venus’ extreme heat and the camera may have malfunctioned because it was beginning to succumb to the Grade A+ real estate that is the Venusian… well, everything.
Alas, not everyone is going to believe this—and that’s okay. Many are skeptical of things that NASA says on account of them having been wrong before and generally being a bit slower to do much of anything when Elon Musk can dance around them in the way of rocket launches. However, who’s to say that a scorpion can’t be chilling in the prime ole’ temperatures of Venus? Maybe we ruined his day off from work when Russia’s probe touched down. God knows the missus was probably not too happy when her rock garden was messed up.
Ah well, sucks to be them.
My Take
I don’t think this was an alien, a scorpion, or anything like that. In fact, I’m so confident in that, I’ve made a list of 20 things that I believe are more likely than life on Venus. Let’s go over them.
1. The YouTube channel Debunk File is a Bitcoin mining operation run by a Chinese cyborg.
2. Vladimir Putin is three midgets in a KGB outfit.
3. Turkey is owned by the Neptunian alien species that lives in my walls.
4. The Grudge is real found footage.
5. League of Legends was created to funnel money to Greenland in order to build underground bunkers for when the Sasquatch population explodes and they begin to invade major cities.
6. Chicago doesn’t have a murder problem.
7. William H. Macy is related to Shinzo Abe.
8. Fall Out Boy songs are foreshadowing a war with aliens from Salacia.
9. The Hindenburg was shot down by a time traveling jaguar flying a McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagle.
10. Bob the Builder is based on a true story.
11. Jumpin’ Jack Flash is about Paul Newman.
12. Joe Biden stole the 2020 Presidential Election by using the Ark of the Covenant to destroy the streak of mediocre Call of Duty games.
13. Friday the 13th was adapted from a lost play by William Shakespeare.
14. Las Vegas was built over Groudon.
15. The Man From Taured was Tim Roth.
16. Igloos are made of human flesh.
17. Michael Eisner is a cactus masquerading as a human.
18. The question “if a women has starch masks on her body does that mean she has been pargnet before.?” was used by the CIA to send a coded message in order to give the go-ahead to kill a high ranking al-Qaeda official.
19. Yaks are actually Tyrannosaurus Rexes.
20. Gavin Newsom is a penguin.
In short: I think it was the lens cap of a camera.
Conclusion
Haha, space scorpion goes brrrr. See you tomorrow!
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