The clouds of Venus kept scientists interested for decades.
They blanket the planet’s surface, and, approximately seven decades ago, an Israeli scholar determined that the clouds could hide a planet full of insect life, which could endure colossal heat.
The surface of the planet was surveyed by Russia’s Venera spacecraft in 1975, but no insects were discovered.
Venus has some really unfavourable conditions for life. It got to that point due to severe greenhouse effects that got ground temperatures on the planet well over 850 degrees Fahrenheit. That temperature is above the melting points of numerous metals.
However, it may be an entirely different story up in the atmosphere, a hypothesis says.
If the process occurs on Earth, why wouldn’t it occur elsewhere too?
One year ago, the concept that microbes may be populating Venus’ atmosphere got bolstered by a study claiming to have found intense levels of phosphine, which is often associated with biological activity in the cloud deck of Earth’s sister planet.
The observations lead to the hypothesis that microbes in the clouds may be the source of the gas.
Unfortunately, when researchers began analyzing the phosphine signal, the chance that it was a sign of life in the clouds of Venus appeared highly unlikely.
However, the possibility of an active microbe community living on Monday took a new turn.
A recent study from the journal Nature Astronomy had scientists give up on the possibility of life as we know it within Venus’ clouds.
The study deemed them uninhabitable.
John Hallsworth, a microbiologist of Queen’s University Belfast and the primary author of the new study, said:
“The most extreme life on Earth would stand no chance whatsoever of living in the Venus clouds.”
