Space & Astronomy

Venus once had carbon dioxide oceans

By T.K. Randall
December 29, 2014

Image: Global View of the Surface of Venus (1991)
Credit: (PD) NASA/JPL With a size and composition very similar to that of our own planet Venus has often been referred to as Earth's twin, but with surface temperatures averaging out at 462 degrees centigrade and an atmospheric pressure 92 times that of the Earth's the conditions for life there are undeniably hellish.

Now scientists believe that this hot and inhospitable world may have also once been home to oceans, not of water, but of a strange type of liquid carbon dioxide that helped carve out its surface."Presently, the atmosphere of Venus is mostly carbon dioxide, 96.5 percent by volume," said lead study author and theoretical physicist Dima Bolmatov.

The researchers believe that millions of years ago the combination of high temperatures and atmospheric pressure on Venus could have produced a "supercriticial" state of carbon dioxide capable of dissolving materials like a liquid but that could also flow like a gas.

"This in turn makes it plausible that geological features on Venus like rift valleys and riverlike beds are the fingerprints of near-surface activity of liquidlike supercritical carbon dioxide," said Bolmatov.

Source: Space.com

Tags: Venus, Oceans