When Was There Life On Venus And Where Did It Go?

do you like thrillers that amazing moment when you're waiting for the next plot twist involving the main character and it turns out completely different from what you expected it seems that the universe like a brilliant screenwriter decided to surprise us again imagine that life didn't originate on earth after all but on Venus unexpected right but it seems that this could be true yes now it's a hot planet surrounded by clouds of acid but it seems that Venus was once teeming with life when everything on earth was just beginning just like a virus jumps from one person to another so the neighboring planets could very well exchange living organisms but what if life itself came to our planet from Venus in 1978 NASA's Pioneer Venus mission reached Venus and found signs that there were once oceans on its surface now there's new evidence of the hypothesis of life on the second planet farthest from the Sun once upon a time on Venus it was quite comfortable according to Michael Way and his colleague Anthony del Genio from the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies there studies have confirmed the existence of liquid water and favourable conditions for life on Venus in the past modeling Venus as it was 4.2 billion years ago and 715 million years ago scientists found that for a period of about three billion years the temperature on Venus ranged from 122 Fahrenheit to minus four Fahrenheit that's about 50 degrees Celsius to minus 20 Celsius it's not quite as comfortable as Earth is today but cool and stable enough for the appearance of life it was then that the oceans were supposed to exist on the planet this amount of time would have been favorable enough for the development of bacteria using computer modeling scientists created five scenarios in which different versions of the planet's surface different volumes of the ocean and different chemical compositions of the atmosphere were calculated in addition several models were developed for the different periods of time in the history of the planet currently Venus is exposed to twice as much solar radiation as the earth and many believe that it was too close to the Sun to hold water in a liquid state this of course is not possible at the current surface temperature of 462 degrees Celsius and the extreme low speed of rotation of the planet around its axis a day on Venus lasts longer than a year due to how long it takes to rotate on its axis but billions of years ago things were completely different young Venus cooled rapidly and had a different rotation speed models created by Michael Wei show that for a period of three billion years there could have been suitable conditions for water and for life says way it's entirely possible that life in the solar system began on Venus and then moved to earth or maybe the other way around the discovery also makes us think that the potential in habitable zone of stars the so called Goldilocks zone in which life is possible is much wider and more diverse than is commonly believed but if life on Venus really existed then what caused it to disappear and did it ever completely disappear researchers believe that a temperate climate on Venus could exist today if not for the release of carbon dioxide stored in the rocks of the planet this process known as degassing occurred 700 to 750 million years ago and caused the rapid development of the greenhouse effect although the exact cause of this release of gas is still unknown it may have been caused by the volcanic activity on the planet in a very short time the planet was almost completely flooded with basaltic lavas and all traces of the original surface were erased the global Venusian catastrophe turned the planet into a red hot greenhouse much like the one that ecologist here on earth fear is in our sure but what happened to every living organism that probably had already formed by that time well everything is very clear they either died out or adapted says David Grinspoon a research fellow at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder Colorado life is tenacious and very adaptable so Venusian life could have migrated into the atmosphere after the water on the surface had dried there might even be light in the clouds of Venus today indeed in the clouds of Venus in addition to other elements there is sulfuric acid and water vapour it's known that life exists in the clouds here on earth and also that some terrestrial organisms can thrive in extremely acidic environments in addition the clouds of Venus present a much more stable and continuous habitat than the ever-changing and thin clouds of the earth according to scientists at the University of Texas at El Paso Venusian life may be hiding in the acid clouds that envelop Venus research director Dirk Shultz mokosh bases his position on a data set obtained by interplanetary research stations for example in the atmosphere of Venus due to lightning and solar radiation there should be a significant amount of carbon monoxide but for some reason it's at a very low level there as if it's consumed somehow in addition scientists were able to gaseous carbonyl sulfide and this chemical compound is one of the signs of the presence of living organisms there's another curious fact the presence in the atmosphere of hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide these gases reacting with each other can only be in the atmosphere at the same time if they're constantly supplied from some source according to Schulz maroush this source may be the activity of certain microorganisms if too bad that we can only speculate on the basis of indirect evidence exploring the planet close up is extremely difficult even unmanned probes can't survive in the conditions on its surface for more than two hours let alone a human the pressure on Venus is 92 times higher than on our planet instead of oxygen the atmosphere is saturated with sulfuric acid and on top of all this the temperature there is 2 times higher than at the tip of a soldering iron but scientists haven't lost all hope and they continue to create bold visions of the colonization of our closest neighbor despite its super harsh environment it turns out that at an altitude of 31 miles or 50 kilometers above the surface of Venus there's a zone where atmospheric pressure and temperature are almost the same as on the surface of the earth the sulfuric acid cloud is closer to the surface and the near Venus orbit at this height is dense enough to protect ships and astronauts from ionizing radiation from space the conditions in the upper atmosphere of Venus are better than on the and more suitable for humans than the Martian climate the colonists will not have problems with energy or water there's also plenty of sunlight here and liquid water could be obtained by condensation from the air or by processing sulfuric acid but all of this is not simply science fiction but the real vision of the havok project that's high altitude Venus operational concept developed by NASA engineers the space agency developed a plan to send airships with residential modules into the atmosphere Venus where robots will work first and then later people but for now the project is on hold perhaps the idea of hovering over Venus in a spacecraft is worth taking a closer look because the earth is heading in the same direction as Venus the greenhouse effect on Venus is often cited as a nightmare example of what awaits the earth in the future according to futurologists we have about 1.5 billion years to find a new home by just about that time the Sun will evaporate all the water on our planet in the mean time people will have heated the planet by releasing heat trapping gases namely carbon dioxide at the same time a slower and more deadly heating process will unfold the Sun will gradually become brighter and hotter learn more water will begin to evaporate from the Earth's surface and in the atmosphere water vapor will create a worsening of the greenhouse effect this will continue to happen even after people stop burning fossil fuels ultimately the greenhouse effect will get out of control all water will be evaporated and earthly life at least in the form that we know will cease to exist maybe during this time we'll manage to prepare ourselves to inhabit the other atmosphere of Venus so if you have big plans for the future hurry up our planet doesn't have much time left perhaps after a couple billion years the inhabitants of some other will explore the sinister conditions on the third planet from the Sun to figure out whether life was here and what it was like just as we are now trying to understand the past of Venus if you haven't packed your suitcase yet to escape from Earth tell us what you think about Venusian life we're waiting for your comments you

Channel: Ridddle

Views: 856,901

Rating: 4.8664584 out of 5

Keywords: Ridddle, riddle, what if, what, if, what would happened, What Happens If, sci, science, smart, experiment

Id: y_j5dP_Xd-8

Length: 10min 35sec (635 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 14 2019