Venus is a warning to us. “Conditions are simply hellish”

The study, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, and reported by the European Southern Observatory (ESO), suggests that A rare phosphorous molecule has been detected in the clouds on Venus. It can come from biological organisms.

“In the past, Venus could have been close to Earth in conditions”

Head of the planetarium in kopernik Science Center Dr. Weronika Śliwa in an interview with Onet explained why it was initially thought that life on Venus would not be possible. – The conditions there are simply “hellish”. The surface temperature is approx. 460 degrees C, lead would melt there. The atmosphere is a hundred times denser than Earth’s, and has a rather hostile composition because it consists mainly of carbon dioxide wêgla with the addition of nitrogen, there is also essentially no oxygen in it. In addition, there is very little water vapor, but there is quite a lot of sulfuric acid from which clouds form – she described.

However, Śliwa added that there were some indications that life was once possible on Venus. – Formerly Venus could be similar in terms to Earth. It may have had oceans and a favorable climate, but the greenhouse effect has brought it into its current situation, which is a warning to us. For a long time, however, there have been speculations that some life may exist in layers of clouds, at a height of about 50 km above the surface, where conditions are more tolerable – she added.

– The temperature is between ten and twenty degrees Celsius and the atmospheric pressure is also close to the Earth’s level. Therefore, there was a thought to search for traces of life there, perhaps one that might have existed on the surface of the planet before, under more favorable conditions. Later, microorganisms could survive in the cloud layer, Śliwa explained.

Special biomarkers are used to confirm the thesis. – There have been many workin which the following question was considered: if we begin to study distant planets, how do we actually know that life can exist on them? Thus, the concept of biomarkers emerged – certain gases in the atmospheres of planets, the presence of which would indicate the existence of life in some way similar to earth, said Śliwa.