Many doubt that life could exist on Venus due to its harsh environment. However, researchers found signs that the Earth's twin planets could be inhabitable.
Venus Could Host Life?
A new study that has yet to be formally peer-reviewed has discovered that concentrated sulfuric acid can keep amino acids stable. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins and a necessary chemical for life.
This suggests that life may exist on Venus, above the extreme heat and pressure of the planet's surface, in those dense sulfuric acid clouds. Planets like Earth and Venus frequently receive their supply of amino acids from meteorites and other cosmic objects.
"These findings significantly broaden the range of biologically relevant molecules that could be components of a biochemistry based on a concentrated sulfuric acid solvent," the authors wrote.
The researchers' earlier research revealed that concentrated sulfuric acid did not affect the stability of nucleic acid bases, which are the building blocks of DNA.
According to David Rothery, a planetary geosciences professor at the Open University in the United Kingdom, the study was very clear about conditions in the clouds, at 48-68 km (30-42 miles) where the temperature is right for liquid water to exist as droplets.
Venus's clouds are reportedly extremely acidic due to atmospheric sulfur dioxide that dissolves in the water to form sulfuric acid. So, while the temperature is ideal for life, the acid presents a problem. However, the study shows that amino acids, necessary for life as we know it, may remain stable even in a sulfuric environment.
The scientists speculate that the results show that life could arise in water and a variety of solvents. But any life that might survive the harsh environment of Venus most certainly developed long ago when the planet was closer to Earth.
While microbial life may have evolved to survive in Venus's current clouds, Rothery finds it highly improbable that life ever began there. He believed that if life exists in Venus' clouds, it probably descended from life that originated similarly to Earth's life long ago-possibly 3-4 billion years ago-when Venus's environment may have been considerably more like that of the early Earth, complete with oceans of liquid water.
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Venus May Have Had Earth-Like Tectonics That Support Life
It's possible that Venus once had plate tectonics like Earth's. The finding increases the possibility that life has ever existed on the planet known as the scorching world, which is located two planets away from the Sun.
Lead author Matt Weller, a scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, stated that it is likely that two planets were concurrently functioning under a plate tectonic regime similar to the one that our planet currently enjoys and is home to life.
Over the course of billions of years, this tectonic process has hastened the formation of many of Earth's geological features, including things like continents and mountains. Crucially, the chemistry created by plate tectonics on Earth allowed life to evolve by sustaining the planet's surface temperature. And Venus most likely had this as well.
One theory for Venus's unique evolution is that its surface was once composed of a single plate, a "stagnant lid" with little give. Venus's atmosphere was probably shielded from internal movement and gas escapes by this solid plate.
Weller and his colleagues, however, think that this was not always the case and that the planet is similar to Earth in size, mass, volume, and density-may have undergone shifting plate tectonics between 3.5 and 4.5 billion years ago. If true, that would also account for the high carbon dioxide and nitrogen concentrations now in its atmosphere.
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