Planetary scientists have long speculated about the potential habitability of Venus, not at its hot surface, but in the cloud layers located at 48-60 km altitudes, where temperatures match those found on Earth’s surface. However, the prevailing belief has been that the Venusian clouds cannot support life due to the cloud chemical composition of concentrated sulfuric acid — a highly aggressive solvent. In a new study, chemists studied 20 biogenic amino acids at the range of Venus’ cloud sulfuric acid concentrations and temperatures. The researchers found 19 of the biogenic amino acids they tested are either unreactive or chemically modified in the side chain only, after 4 weeks. Their major finding is that the amino acid backbone remains intact in concentrated sulfuric acid.
“What is absolutely surprising is that concentrated sulfuric acid is not a solvent that is universally hostile to organic chemistry,” said Dr. Janusz Petkowski, a researcher at MIT.
“We are finding that building blocks of life on Earth are stable in sulfuric acid, and this is very intriguing for the idea of the possibility of life on Venus,” added MIT Professor Sara Seager.
“It doesn’t mean that life there will be the same as here. In fact, we know it can’t be. But this work advances the notion that Venus’ clouds could support complex chemicals needed for life.”
The search for life in Venus’ clouds has gained momentum in recent years, spurred in part by a controversial detection of phosphine — a molecule that is considered to be one signature of life — in the planet’s atmosphere.
While that detection remains under debate, the news has reinvigorated an old question: Could Earth’s sister planet actually host life?
In search of an answer, scientists are planning several missions to Venus, including the first largely privately funded mission to the planet, backed by California-based launch company Rocket Lab.
That mission, on which Professor Seager is the…
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