Scientists from the University of Chicago discovered that Venus may have had oceans long before life began on Earth. Research published Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Venus today has a dry, oxygen-poor atmosphere. Previous studies have attempted to model its climatic history. Depending on how past models were built, completely different climate models emerge.
The authors of the new study created a model by assuming that Venus once had an ocean and a favorable climate for life. They then ran the model a total of 94,080 times with three different starting points.
The results show that Venus has been uninhabited for more than 70% of its history, four times longer than some previous estimates.
Even if there was an ocean on Venus, it dried up about 3 billion years ago, with a maximum ocean depth of 300 meters across its entire surface.
It is believed that life on Earth arose about 3.5-4 billion years ago. If there really was liquid water on the surface of Venus 3 billion years ago, there might be life on it.