Venus May Have Been Sheathed In CO2 Seas

Vast oceans of carbon dioxide flew like "soap bubbles" around Venus, say American researchers. Those oceans created the geological surfaces of Venus, which look like the earth.

"Presently, the atmosphere of Venus is mostly carbon dioxide, 96.5 percent by volume," lead study author Dima Bolmatov, a theoretical physicist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, said, according to rt.com.

Earlier research opined that in spite of the current status of Venus as an immensely hot and dry planet, it would once have been the source of enough water, equivalent to any ocean 25 meters deep. Earth is viewed as a "haven for life", but Venus is thought of as "hellish", whose atmosphere is oppressive and there are clouds that seem as if they are made of corrosive sulfuric acid that float over a rocky surface so hot that they could melt lead, according to Space.com.

But contradictory to that theory, Bolmatov's research says that Venus perhaps would once have had oceans of supercritical carbon dioxide in a fluid state, held above the threshold of its critical temperature as well as pressure.

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

Even though Venus is viewed by scientists as a "sister planet" to earth due to its size, distance from the sun, its gravity, and general mass that is like the earth's, scientists feel that the surface pressure of Venus must once have been higher, which would thus permit carbon dioxide to exist in the modified state. Hence, the period of heightened surface pressure may have lasted between 100 million and 200 million years.

Bolmatov adds that his team will continue the research and look into the shift from gas-like to liquid-like properties in 'supercritical carbon dioxide'. The gas in this different state "looked like soap bubbles...a bubble of gas that is covered by a thick layer of liquid," Bolmatov said.

Some things related to the behaviour of supercritical carbon dioxide is still not completely clear. While supercritical matter might shift from gas-like to liquid-like properties, the earlier studies showed that the shift in the behavior was slow.