Scientists discovered a Venus-like world that might not be a hellhole (2024)

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Scientists discovered a Venus-like world that might not be a hellhole? ›

But Venus might once have been an ocean world much like Earth before it devolved into a hellhole. Now two teams of international scientists have found a Venus-like planet not far from our own solar system, and they're eager to know if it's habitable.

It is a very dry planet with no evidence of water, its surface temperature is hot enough to melt lead, and its atmosphere is so thick that the air pressure on its surface is over 90 times that on Earth. Even the spacecraft which have landed on Venus only survived for about an hour before being crushed and melted.

Additionally, Venus is covered with thousands of volcanoes. In the 1990s, the Magellan mission found that at least 85 percent of the surface was covered by lava flows. Moreover, its sulfur-rich atmosphere suggests that the planet's volcanoes have long been erupting.

The discovery of recent volcanism on Venus provides a valuable insight to the planet's history and why it took a different evolutionary path than Earth. Before starting its journey to Venus, NASA's Magellan spacecraft was released while in Earth orbit by Space Shuttle Atlantis' STS-30 mission.

Although not currently habitable, Venus lies within the Sun's "Goldilocks zone," and may have been habitable before Earth. Exploring the surface of Venus is difficult because of the intense heat and crushing air pressure.

Simulations produced by a Brown-led research team offer evidence that Venus once had plate tectonics — a finding that opens the door for the possibility of early life on the planet and insights into its history.

Roughly 1.3 billion years from now, "humans will not be able to physiologically survive, in nature, on Earth" due to sustained hot and humid conditions. In about 2 billion years, the oceans may evaporate when the sun's luminosity is nearly 20% more than it is now, Kopparapu said.

The recent excitement around the potential detection of life signs on an exoplanet started in 2023 when the JWST detected potential "biosignature" elements in the atmosphere of the exoplanet K2-18 b, a super-Earth located around 120 light-years from Earth.

Past habitability potential

Scientists have speculated that if liquid water existed on its surface before the runaway greenhouse effect heated the planet, microbial life may have formed on Venus, but it may no longer exist.

Planet Mars is believed to contain three most essential requirement of life i.e., Chemical building blocks abundance , source of water and a source of energy as volcanoes . Thus, it is expected that apart from earth Mars is the planet which can cater life.

What is the mystery of planet Venus? ›

Through a process called “dissociative recombination,” hydrogen atoms zip into space, causing Venus to lose water at twice the rate previously estimated. This discovery unravels Venus's water story and also offers insights into the water dynamics of planets across the galaxy.

Venus is sometimes called Earth's twin because Venus and Earth are almost the same size, have about the same mass (they weigh about the same), and have a very similar composition (are made of the same material). They are also neighboring planets.

Having found oxygen, Venus becomes a tiny bit more hospitable, but don't start packing your bags just yet. Oxygen concentrations are fleetingly low, nowhere near the 21% we enjoy here on Earth, and with surface temperatures of nearly 900 Fahrenheit, no amount of oxygen would let us breathe easily.

Definitions of Venus's curse. noun. a communicable infection transmitted by sexual intercourse or genital contact. synonyms: Cupid's disease, Cupid's itch, STD, VD, dose, sexually transmitted disease, social disease, venereal disease, venereal infection.

There are plenty of interesting things to explore on Venus but it's not a target for human exploration because it's so inhospitable, with over 93 times Earth atmospheric pressure and over 480 degrees at the surface ,on a cold day.

Sending a lander to Venus presents several huge engineering problems. Granted, we'd get a break from the nail-biting entry, descent and landing, since Venus' atmosphere is so thick, a lander would settle gently to the surface like a stone settles in water — no sky cranes or retrorockets required.

With extreme heat and crushing atmospheric pressure, the surface of Venus today is one of the deadliest environments in the Solar System. Venus is the hottest planet in the Solar System, even though Mercury is twice as close to the Sun and receives four times more solar energy.

Cataclysmic events. Between 700 and 750 million years ago, a near-global resurfacing event triggered the release of carbon dioxide from rock on the planet, which transformed its climate.

Venus' thick, carbon dioxide atmosphere causes a runaway greenhouse effect. At the surface, Venus has an atmosphere 50 times denser than Earth's, and average surface temperatures of 470 degrees Celsius (878 degrees Fahrenheit) — hot enough to melt lead. Venus is currently inhospitable, but it wasn't always that way.

The State of Venus and its Atmosphere

However, while our neighboring planet may appear similar in size and composition to Earth, its surface conditions make it inhospitable for human life. With surface temperatures reaching up to 864°F (462°C), the possibility of terraforming Venus seems like an impossible feat.