Venus may have been habitable ocean world with LIFE – before mystery catastrophe turned it into ‘toxic fiery hellscape’
VENUS may have been a habitable planet with water for two to three billion years until a dramatic event 700 million years ago resurfaced 80% of the planet.
This is according to researchers from the European Planet Society who think the planet named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty wasn't always a toxic hellscape.
Venus is sometimes referred to as Earth's 'twisted sister' because they are similar in size but opposite in terms of habitats.
Forty years ago, a Nasa mission to Venus hinted that the planet may once have had a shallow ocean of water.
Researchers Michael Way of The Goddard Institute for Space Science and his colleague Anthony Del Genio built on this information and created a series of five simulations that show Venus with different variations of water coverage.
Way said: "Our hypothesis is that Venus may have had a stable climate for billions of years. It is possible that the near-global resurfacing event is responsible for its transformation from an Earth-like climate to the hellish hot-house we see today."
In all of the five scenarios that the researchers created, Venus was able to maintain stable temperatures between 20-50 degrees for around three billion years.
They think this temperate climate may have still been around on Venus today if a series of events had not caused an out-pouring of carbon dioxide on the planet.
The researchers created 3D simulation models of five Venus's each with different amounts of water present and took into account factors such as solar radiation and changes to the atmosphere.
Some researchers don't consider Venus to be in the habitable zone of our Solar System and therefore incapable of supporting liquid water.
However, this new study suggests that this might not be the case.
Way explained: "Venus currently has almost twice the solar radiation that we have at Earth.
"However, in all the scenarios we have modelled, we have found that Venus could still support surface temperatures amenable for liquid water."
Just like Earth, as Venus evolved it may have trapped carbon dioxide in rocks on the surface and maintained a stable atmosphere.
The cause of what could have caused these rocks to release all that carbon dioxide is unknown but one possibility is that volcanic activity created a carbon dioxide re-absorption problem resulting in a greenhouse gas effect that saw temperatures sore above 460 degrees.
Way said: "Something happened on Venus where a huge amount of gas was released into the atmosphere and couldn't be re-absorbed by the rocks.
"On Earth we have some examples of large-scale outgassing, for instance the creation of the Siberian Traps 500 million years ago which is linked to a mass extinction, but nothing on this scale.
"It completely transformed Venus."
The research can only suggest possibilities though and more missions to Venus are needed for us to get a better idea of its history and evolution.
Way concluded: "Our models show that there is a real possibility that Venus could have been habitable and radically different from the Venus we see today.
"This opens up all kinds of implications for exoplanets found in what is called the 'Venus Zone', which may in fact host liquid water and temperate climates."
The findings were presented at the .
Venus facts
Here's what you need to know...
- Venus is nearly the same size as Earth with a diameter of 12,104 km compared to Earth's 12,742 km
- Venus is so hot that the surface temperature can reach 471 °C
- It rotates in the opposition direction to most planets, potentially due to an asteroid collision
- The first man-made aircraft landed on Venus in 1996
- Venus is the hottest planet in the Solar System
- It is the second brightest object in the sky at night
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In other space news, something is ‘killing’ galaxies in the most extreme parts of universe leaving scientists baffled.
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And, Nasa missed a 450-foot asteroid deemed the ‘largest to pass this close to Earth in 100 years’ – and blames bad weather.
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