Scientists discovered a Venus-like world that might not be a hellhole (2025)

FAQs

What makes Venus an uninhabitable world? ›

Although not currently habitable, Venus lies within the Sun's "Goldilocks zone," and may have been habitable before Earth. Contrary to its serene appearance, Venus is a world of intense heat, crushing atmospheric pressure and clouds of corrosive acid.

Venus spins slowly in the opposite direction from most planets. Venus is similar in structure and size to Earth, and is sometimes called Earth's evil twin. Its thick atmosphere traps heat in a runaway greenhouse effect, making it the hottest planet in our solar system with surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead.

Most astronomers feel that it would be impossible for life to exist on Venus. Today, Venus is a very hostile place. It is a very dry planet with no evidence of water, its surface temperature is hot enough to melt lead, and its atmosphere is so thick that the air pressure on its surface is over 90 times that on Earth.

Venus is uninhabitable. It's like our planet's evil twin, with a diameter only 5% smaller than Earth's. But the average surface temperature on Venus is 464°C – high enough to melt lead. Its surface is dotted with lava-spewing volcanoes.

However, the question remained whether Venus started its life as a more habitable planet before a runaway greenhouse gas effect baked it dry. But a new study from the University of Chicago argues there is little chance the planet was ever habitable.

No chance, says new NASA study. New research has debunked a 2020 study that claimed to have found the chemical phosphine, a potential biomarker for extraterrestrial life, in Venus' atmosphere.

Because liquid water is the key to life as we know it, if Venus had water on its surface for billions of years it's possible that microbial life emerged during that time. We don't know for sure, though, and looking for evidence of past life on Venus is almost impossible with current technologies.

Newly Discovered Planet May Be Able to Support Human Life

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Venus is sometimes called Earth's twin because Venus and Earth are almost the same size, have about the same mass (they weigh about the same), and have a very similar composition (are made of the same material). They are also neighboring planets.

At 900 degrees Fahrenheit (482 degrees Celsius), you already know this one isn't going to be pretty. "By the way, Venus has about the same gravity as Earth, so you'd be very familiar walking around," Tyson says, "until you vaporize." Total time: Less than one second.

Was Venus destroyed by global warming? ›

What happened to Venus can be described as runaway climate change - an irreversible, life-destroying change to the planet's climate that rendered it uninhabitable. And while scientists aren't 100% sure what triggered such an extreme change in climate, they do have some ideas.

At a temperature of 450 Celsius, and with 90 atmospheres of pressure of carbon-dioxide atmosphere, the surface of Venus is far too hostile to land humans upon, but we can put humans in the atmosphere to explore the surface via rugged telerobot.

With extreme surface temperatures reaching nearly 735 K (462 °C; 863 °F) and an atmospheric pressure 92 times that of Earth, the conditions on Venus make water-based life as we know it unlikely on the surface of the planet.

It has a dense, toxic atmosphere consisting mainly of carbon dioxide with clouds of sulfuric acid, creating a runaway greenhouse effect. Venus' surface temperature averages around 465°C (870°F), hotter than the surface of Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, and far too hot for humans or known life forms to survive.

Exploring the surface of Venus is difficult because of the intense heat and crushing air pressure. The longest any spacecraft has survived on the surface is a little over two hours – a record set by the Soviet Union's Venera 13 probe in 1981.

Past habitability potential

Scientists have speculated that if liquid water existed on its surface before the runaway greenhouse effect heated the planet, microbial life may have formed on Venus, but it may no longer exist.

Venus is the most similar planet to Earth in terms of size, mass, density, gravity and composition. While Earth has had a stable and habitable climate over geological time, Venus is in a climate catastrophe with a thick carbon dioxide atmosphere and surface temperatures reaching about 470 C.

It has a low atmospheric pressure, low temperatures, and high exposure to cosmic radiation, and, while it is not a zero-gravity environment, it is not yet known whether the roughly one-third Earth-normal gravity of Mars is sufficient to avoid the bone decalcification and muscle tone loss experienced by astronauts in ...

Venus was once more Earth-like, but climate change made it uninhabitable.