Microbes may exist in the cloud layer of Venus

Microbial life may exist in the cloud layer of Venus. This conclusion was reached by employees of the Ural Federal University, who conducted experiments in the laboratory, which proved the ability of microbes to live in the cloudy layer of the second planet of the solar system.

Russian researchers put forward a hypothesis about the possibility of the existence of microbial life in the atmosphere of Venus.

Microbes can live in the cloud layer of the planet – in a special ecological niche, which is a foam-water structure. The cloud layer of Venus maintains the temperature at which some bacteria on Earth can exist.

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“The surface of Venus is too hot for water to exist, so all the planet’s water evaporated and formed clouds twenty to twenty-five kilometers thick.

“The acidity level of the clouds on Venus was initially neutral, but as sulfur dioxide entered the atmosphere, the acidity of the environment grew, which should have directed natural selection towards resistance to acid exposure.

“It is assumed that microbes in the atmosphere of Venus have occupied a special niche in the liquid phase of clouds, where there are dissolved nutrients,” say the scientists.

Whether there are actually bacteria in the clouds of Venus is unknown. Upcoming interplanetary missions will allow us to find out.