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venus

SPACE: Venus Has A Yummy, Gooey Exterior

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Venus - NASA

Venus may still be geologically active today, which could mean that Earth’s planetary sibling is a good place for scientists to learn about early Earth and faraway worlds. An international team of scientists used old radar images from NASA’s Magellan mission, which ended operations in 2004, to study the Venusian surface. They found places where chunks of crust were sliding and turning like “pack ice,” according to the researchers. Since the lowlands the observations focused on are relatively young, the geological activity that triggers the motions happened not too long ago and may even be continuing today. The work suggests … Read more

SPACE: Water-Based Life Extremely Unlikely On Venus

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Venus - NASA

The amount of water in the atmosphere of Venus is so low that even the most drought-tolerant of Earth’s microbes wouldn’t be able to survive there, a new study has found. The findings seem to wipe out the hope stirred by last year’s discovery of molecules potentially created by living organisms in the scorched planet’s atmosphere that were seen as an indication of the possible presence of life. The new study looked at measurements from probes that flew through the atmosphere of Venus and acquired data about temperature, humidity and pressure in the thick sulfuric acid clouds surrounding the planet. … Read more

SPACE: Possible Signs of Life Found on Venus

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Venis - NASA

An unexplained chemical has turned up in the upper atmosphere of Venus. Scientists are tentatively suggesting it could be a sign of life. The unknown chemical is phosphine gas (PH3), a substance that on Earth mostly comes from anaerobic (non-oxygen-breathing) bacteria or “anthropogenic activity” — stuff humans are doing. It exists in the atmospheres of gas giant planets, due to chemical processes that occur deep in their pressurized depths to bind together three hydrogen atoms and a phosphorus atom. But scientists don’t have any explanation for how it could appear on Venus; no known chemical processes would generate phosphine there. … Read more

SPACE: Was Venus Once a Paradise?

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Venus - NASA

Venus, our solar system’s broiling, radiation-bombarded, sulfuric-acid-raining, toxic hellscape of a planet, may once have hosted vast oceans … and could have been rather nice, actually. In fact, a water-covered and life-friendly Venus possibly persisted for as long as 3 billion years, scientists recently reported. But that idyllic time in Venus’ past ended abruptly between 700 million and 750 million years ago, when a near-planet-wide release of carbon dioxide (CO2) stored in surface rocks disrupted the planet’s atmosphere and triggered its transformation to the “hellish hothouse” that we know today, researchers said in a statement. Venus and Earth could be … Read more

SPACE: NASA Wants to Send Humans to Live in the Clouds on Venus

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Venus Cloud Living - NASA==

Popular science fiction of the early 20th century depicted Venus as some kind of wonderland of pleasantly warm temperatures, forests, swamps and even dinosaurs. In 1950, the Hayden Planetarium at the American Natural History Museum were soliciting reservations for the first space tourism mission, well before the modern era of Blue Origins, SpaceX and Virgin Galactic. All you had to do was supply your address and tick the box for your preferred destination, which included Venus. Today, Venus is unlikely to be a dream destination for aspiring space tourists. As revealed by numerous missions in the last few decades, rather … Read more