Oxygen detected in Venus’ hellish atmosphere
source : www.livescience.com
The atmosphere of Venus does notoriously hellish. The air is corrosive and hot enough to melt lead. The billowing clouds are poisonous to humans. Sometimes it rains acid. But researchers have just discovered that this inhospitable atmosphere, sandwiched between layers of toxic gas, contains a thin layer of molecules oxygen.
Historically speaking Venus has received far less scientific attention than Earth’s other neighbor, Mars. Recent reports that the organic compound phosphine may (or may not) exist in the Venusian clouds, however, have sparked new interest in studying the planet.
The new measurements come from NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a Boeing 747 that the agency retrofitted with a 2.7-meter (8.9-foot) infra-red telescope. A team of German astrophysicists studied the data from SOFIA and focused on 17 positions in Venus’ atmosphere, both on the dayside and nightside of the planet. They discovered molecular oxygen – a gas made up of unbonded oxygen atoms – in all of them. The results were published in the journal on November 7 Nature communication.
But that doesn’t mean astronauts on Venus would be able to breathe oxygen just like they would on Earth. Molecular oxygen is different from the oxygen we breathe on our planet: while breathing oxygen consists of two bonded oxygen atoms, creating the molecule O2, molecular oxygen is a soup of individual, free-floating oxygen atoms. If we tried to inhale it, it would react too easily with the tissues in our lungs and not enter our bloodstream.
Oxygen had previously been observed on the night side of Venus, but this is the first time that researchers have also detected it in the daylight areas. The researchers suspect that molecular oxygen builds up as the sun’s heat breaks down carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide molecules. Winds high in the atmosphere then blow it to the nightside of the planet, where the free oxygen atoms gradually react with other elements.
The molecular oxygen layer probably also has a slight cooling effect on the upper layers of Venus’ atmosphere. This modest cooling is not enough to compensate for the runaway planet greenhouse effectbut it does hint at Venus’ milder, more pleasant past.
The finding also highlights how much scientists still have to learn about Earth’s hostile “twin.” Of two upcoming NASA missionsas well as a study supported by the European Space Agency, Venus is about to get a lot more attention, which could mean more discoveries in the near future.
source : www.livescience.com
