Oceans May Have Once Graced Venus Before It Became a Hell Planet

[Judi Lynn]

13 March 2023
By MICHELLE STARR



Artist's impression of a wet Venus. (NASA)

Venus may be one of the brightest and most beautiful objects in our night sky, but don't be fooled.
Our neighboring planet is deeply inhospitable to life as we know it – a toxic, scorching world on which humans will never be able to tread.

In spite of the differences in habitability, though, Venus shares some striking similarities with Earth. Both planets are around the same size, mass, and density, and have very similar compositions. This raises the question: Could Venus ever have been habitable?

A new study has found that if Venus ever did have habitable conditions, and liquid water on its surface, it was a long time ago, and lasted only briefly before the planet transformed into the parched, arid world it is today.

Planetary scientists Alexandra Warren and Edwin Kite of the University of Chicago modeled the history of Venus' atmosphere to determine the rate and mechanisms of oxygen loss – which in turn revealed that if the planet ever did have liquid water (which some scientists doubt), it was over 3 billion years ago.

More:
https://www.sciencealert.com/oceans-may-have-once-graced-venus-before-it-became-a-hell-planet

[John1956PA]

1. I read that, at one time, Venus was habitable, but that ended when the sun's radiation intensified.

If that is true, Venus's loss was earth's gain, since the increased heat output from the sun made conditions on earth habitable.