SPACE: Was Venus Once a Paradise?
Venus, our solar system’s broiling, radiation-bombarded, sulfuric-acid-raining, toxic hellscape of a planet, may once have hosted vast oceans … and could have been rather nice, actually. In fact, a water-covered and life-friendly Venus possibly persisted for as long as 3 billion years, scientists recently reported. But that idyllic time in Venus’ past ended abruptly between 700 million and 750 million years ago, when a near-planet-wide release of carbon dioxide (CO2) stored in surface rocks disrupted the planet’s atmosphere and triggered its transformation to the “hellish hothouse” that we know today, researchers said in a statement. Venus and Earth could be … Read more