A new study seems to point that, millions of years ago, our neighbor planet Venus' carbon dioxide components were so high that there were actually liquid oceans of the stuff, apparently making it possible for the planet to ultimately take the shape it has today.
As space exploration continues in the distant corners of our galaxy and hopefully beyond, the latest study regarding Venus carbon dioxide is an exciting finding for science geeks, as it may point towards how the planet named after the Roman goddess of love first came into fruition.
According to UPI, while today Venus' climate is practically hellish due to its proximity to the sun, it didn't use to be quite as hot; a new study pushes the theory that in Venus, carbon monoxide was such an important component in the planet that there were actually oceans of liquid-like carbon monoxide in the planet.
According to Zee News, scientists at Cornell University made the Venus carbon dioxide discovery. Dima Bolmatov, one of the theoretical scientists in the university, stated that these days, the atmosphere of the planet is composed on a 96.5 percent in volume by carbon dioxide, though this is obviously only the gas.
In fact, carbon dioxide has the same three states of matter as water: solid, liquid and gas; however, the component has a critical point of pressure and temperature where it can enter a different state, the "supercritical" one, which would have properties of liquids and gasses; precisely where the Cornell researchers focused their studies.
After further examination of Venus through computer-generated simulations of its molecular activity, they found that the country might have hosted oceans of "supercritical" state carbon dioxide, something that would have occurred for about 100 million to 200 million years.
""The atmospheric pressure on the surface of Venus is currently more than 90 times that of Earth, but in the early days of the planet, Venus' surface pressure could have been dozens of times greater," the scientists told Business 2 Community.
Seemingly a popular planet in scientific news these days, the Venus carbon dioxide theory comes only a few days after, NASA pushed forward the idea of creating a cloud city over the planet to send a manned space expedition to its atmosphere, where the temperatures are much nicer and wouldn't cause rovers or humans to burst into flames upon arrival.
