Dark Splotches on Venus Could Be Signs of Life

Venus , with its crush atmospheric pressure and scorching surface temperature , seems an unlikely place for life to take detainment . But while the surface of this planet stay completely inhospitable , Venus ’ atmosphere may be up to of harboring microbic life , according to new enquiry .

Venus may be a hell on earth , but it was n’t always this agency . clime model hint the 2d planet from the Sun once featured liquid water on its surface and a habitable climate for upwards of 2 billion days . That ’s plenty of time for living to evolve , but at some point in this planet ’s past times — we do n’t know exactly when — thing hold up all to ca-ca . Owing to a runaway nursery gas pedal force , all of Venus ’ water vaporise into the atm , which in good turn aggravate the warming effect even further . Today , temperatures on the surface exceed 860 degree F ( 450 degrees C ) , and the atmospheric pressure is 92 time heavier than what we experience here on Earth .

https://gizmodo.com/theres-growing-evidence-that-venus-was-once-habitable-1784828113

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

If life come out on Venus during its 2 - million - yr windowpane of habitability , this cataclysmic turn of events belike pass over out every go creature , large or small . But asnew researchpublished this calendar week in the science journal Astrobiology indicate out , there ’s another possibility : Some microorganisms may have recede to the clouds , where environmental condition are amazingly stable and downright balmy . Today , this inquiry suggests , we can see these exist microbic blooms as dark splotch in Venus ’s low-toned swarm level . The lead author of the new study , Sanjay Limaye of the University of Wisconsin – Madison ’s Space Science and Engineering Center , is n’t saying there ’s life on Venus , but the novel report — a ego - described “ speculation article”—suggests we should appear for signs of life in the satellite ’s cloudtops .

The musical theme that life might exist in Venus ’ cloud is nothing new . Astronomer Carl Sagan first proposed the melodic theme in 1967 , followed by astrobiologist David Grinspoon in 1997 . This line of work of enquiry largely stall due to lack of evidence , but a 1999 paper suggest shape at high elevation would freeze , but not pop , microbial life . A 2004 paper concluded that chemical conditions in Venus ’ cloud fall within the bounds of habitableness , namely at the level between 48 kilometers and 52 kilometers , where temperatures fluctuate between zero to 60 arcdegree speed of light , atmospheric pressure hovers between 0.4 to 2 asynchronous transfer mode , and the clouds are peppered with spirit - favorable compound such as sulfur , acid aerosols , and carbon dioxide .

And then there ’s Venus ’ strange dark blotch , which were first detected by astronomers most a 100 ago . When viewed in ultraviolet light , these dismal patches exhibit traces of concentrated sulphuric acid and other unsung Inner Light absorbing corpuscle . These mend run for days , frequently changing shape and contrast .

William Duplessie

As the new newspaper points out , it just so happens that some bug on Earth are capable of thriving in acidic surround , feeding off carbon dioxide and acquire sulphuric Zen . Similar conditions subsist along Venus ’ cloudtops . We also screw of bacterium with light - absorb property ; it ’s imaginable that monumental conglomerations of these airborne micro-organism could explain the enigmatic moody patches on Venus . Finally , some microorganisms on Earth , mostly bacterium , get traverse up into our ambiance , where they can quell awake at heights reaching 25 miles ( 41 kilometre ) . Perhaps something like this materialize on Venus , and the microorganisms have been hanging out in the clouds ever since its sea boil aside . This idea is not as demented as it vocalise . At Tso Kar , a eminent - height salt lake in northern India , the powdery remainder of sulfur - munching bacteria is frequently blown into the atm .

As mark , this is all very circumstantial , and we really have no approximation if life exists in Venus ’ cloud . Our instruments ca n’t recognise if the particles are organic or inorganic in nature . But it ’s sure an estimation deserving exploring . One style we could do this is by deploying the Venus Atmospheric Maneuverable Platform , or VAMP — a automatic glider undertaking from NASA , Northrop Grumman , and L’Garde that would fly like a plane but floats like a blimp . Once dispatched to the Venusian atm , VAMP would stay airborne for about a twelvemonth , gathering information and sample . It could even be outfit with an raiment of sensors , including an instrument that can key aliveness microorganisms . Ideally , flirt would be included in Russia ’s Roscosmos Venera - D mission , which is slat for launch sometime in the late 2020s .

Sounds almost impossible to conceive , but our nearest global neighbor may in reality be one of the estimable candidates for aliveness in the Solar System outside of Earth .

Starship Test 9