For many years, scientists have believed this Venus he can stay at home a stranger life.
But new research has dashed that hope – as scientists say Earth’s ‘evil twin’ has never had liquid water on its surface.
By studying the nature of the earth’s atmosphere, researchers University of Cambridge they found that Venus may have been dry for most of its history.
Without liquid water, it is impossible for life as we know it to exist on Earth.
This discovery suggests that Venus may be at the very end of the sun’s habitable zone, narrowing the reach of life as we know it.
However, the researchers say the search for life on Venus is far from over.
Lead researcher Tereza Constantinou, a PhD student at the University of Cambridge, told MailOnline: “While this rules out life on Earth, it opens up the intriguing possibility of complex, unusual life thriving in the cloud of Venus.
‘Any life possible in the Venusian clouds would have started and evolved under very different conditions, perhaps adapted to life in the sulfuric acid clouds – so much life that we don’t know about.’
Scientists have given up hope that Venus (pictured) could be home to alien life as new research suggests the planet is already dry and habitable.
Venus is the closest planet to Earth and is 24 million kilometers from the sun. Venus and Earth are often called ‘sister planets’ because they are similar in mass, size, and density but have evolved very differently.
Venus and Earth are often called ‘Sister Planets’ because of their similarity in mass, size, density, and distance from the sun.
However, even though they came from the same origin, sister planets could not grow into different brothers.
Although Earth has a lot of liquid water and holds a lot of oxygen, Venus is a hell of a planet.
Ms Constantinou says: ‘Venus now has surface conditions that are more extreme than Earth’s, with an atmosphere 90 times stronger, surface temperatures rising to around 460°C (860°F), and toxic gases made up mainly of carbon dioxide and sulphurous clouds.’
However, based on climate models, scientists believe that there are two ways that Venus could have taken to achieve this.
In some cases, Venus began its life abundant with liquid water until heat waves caused by volcanic eruptions caused the heat to disappear.
On the other hand, Venus has always been a dry, unstable planet and has never had the conditions to support liquid water.
To investigate which issues might be at play, Ms Constantinou and her colleagues looked at the composition of the Venusian atmosphere.
Scientists believe that Venus could have evolved into its shape (right) in two ways. Either it started to be covered with liquid water (below) before the gradual warming, or it was always a dry atmosphere (above) as H20 was expelled from the atmosphere into the atmosphere.
The researchers counted the chemicals that come from the Venusian mountains (shown). On Earth, this is 80 percent water due to the high humidity while the planet Venus had only 6 percent water.
In any explosive planet, there is a constant chemical communication between the inside and the outside.
As air moves out of the air and into the air, these chemicals need to be removed from the atmosphere to keep the air stable.
Volcanoes release gases from the interior of the planet to replace those lost in the atmosphere.
This means that by looking at how chemicals are released into the atmosphere and comparing them with what is left, astronomers can determine the state of the Earth.
On Earth, volcanic eruptions are about 80 percent steam due to the abundance of water on Earth.
If Venus was covered in seaswe can expect to see its volcanic eruptions releasing more water vapor.
However, in their paper published in Nature Astronomythe researchers found that the Venusian crater contains only about six percent water, which means that the planet has been dry all this time.
This pours cold water on the idea that there could be Earth-like life seeking dangerous life in the atmosphere of Venus.
By looking at the gases in the atmosphere of Venus, researchers predict that the planet’s interior is relatively humid. This shows that the earth did not have seas capable of supporting life. Image: NASA image of the Venusian surface
Ms Constantinou says: “One theory of how life could have lived in the clouds is that it migrated upwards from its former habitat.
‘In this scenario, with a hot planet passing through a thin atmosphere, once the oceans melt and the surface becomes uninhabitable, life would move to the cloud zone.
‘However, the absence of oceans in Venus’ past suggests that Venus never had the necessary conditions to support life like Earth – Earth never existed.’
The findings contradict other previous studies that have shown a strong belief that life could exist on Earth.
For examplethis year researchers confirmed ammonia and phosphine in the earth’s clouds – two ‘biomarkers’ that indicate life.
On Earth, these chemicals are produced by the decomposition of living things.
Because there are currently no other known natural processes that have formed on Venus, it could be made of what scientists don’t know.
Ammonia was found in the upper atmosphere, where it is too cold for life to form.
Although Venus (pictured) may have always been dry, the researchers suggest that some alien life could have evolved to survive in the sulfuric acid clouds that produced a large amount of oxygen.
But some scientists say it could have formed in a low, warm place, before rising to where it is today.
However, if Venus has been dry throughout its history, these biomarkers it must have been created by an unnatural process or it is a life completely different from that of the Earth.
At the end of this decade, NASA’s DAVINCI mission will launch a probe into the Venusian atmosphere to learn more about its structure.
Likewise, China’s space program recently announced plans to bring space samples back to Earth by 2035.
Between them, the two missions were able to resolve the question of whether Venus was wet and stable or dry and lifeless.
