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ma=86400 A dry interior for Venus suggests the planet was never habitable | Nature Astronomy
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A dry interior for Venus suggests the planet was never habitable

The composition of Venus’s atmosphere is well known, and is likely being replenished by volcanic gases. Analysis suggests that the volcanic eruptions are water-poor — implying that the planet’s mantle is dry. This is consistent with Venus having had a long-lasting dry surface and never having been habitable.

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Fig. 1: The climate pathways proposed for Venus, and their volcanic signatures.

References

  1. Turbet, M. et al. Day–night cloud asymmetry prevents early oceans on Venus but not on Earth. Nature 598, 276–280 (2021). This paper uses a climate model to show that a steam atmosphere produced during Venus’s formation never condensed on the planet’s surface to create oceans.

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This is a summary of: Constantinou, T. et al. A dry Venusian interior constrained by atmospheric chemistry. Nat. Astron. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-024-02414-5 (2024).

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A dry interior for Venus suggests the planet was never habitable. Nat Astron (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-024-02415-4

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