Venus may once have been habitable. Now it can tell us if other worlds might be as well.
Filed under: News, Space, Science & Tech
In his 1954 novel Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov imagined seas filled with life and underwater cities on our neighboring planet. It wasn’t long, however, before we discovered what really lurks beneath Venus’s thick cloud cover. In the 1960s and 1970s, the United States' and Soviet Union's spacecraft found a dense, toxic atmosphere on Venus full of carbon dioxide and clouds of sulfuric acid. On the surface, temperatures were hot enough to melt lead, and the crushing pressure was akin to that found in Earth’s deep oceans.
A world of difference
"Venus is absolutely fascinating because it’s a world that should be very similar to Earth and yet evolved very, very differently,” says NASA’s Lori Glaze.
Earthlings, take heed
A map of Venus’s surface based on imagery collected by Magellan, Pioneer Venus, and Venera 13 and 14 . NASA
Jekyll or Hyde?
Planning a visit
A highland plateau on Venus. NASA