Could Life Develop On Ancient Venus?

In the first couple of billion years of it’s existence the planet Venus apparently had a shallow liquid-water ocean and habitable surface temperatures. This is the data from a NASA computer modeling project of the planet’s ancient climate. It is being suggested that storm clouds may have shielded the surface from the worst brunt of the sun’s light and made the planet habitable.

The study done at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Michael Way, the paper’s lead author suggests that the same tools we use to model climate change on Earth can be adapted to study climates on other planets, both past and present.

While today Venus is a really hot planet on which the mere thought of life surviving is impossible, it is likely that this was not the case two billion years ago. Michael Way and his colleagues simulated a number of situations for Venus based on climate patterns found on Earth. There is one case scenario which led them to believe that ancient Venus may have had all the necessary prerequisites for life. This science project may not be able to prove that the primordial soup developed on Venus, but it sure gave us the possibility.