The Venus Life Equation.
@article{Izenberg2021TheVL, title={The Venus Life Equation.}, author={Noam R. Izenberg and Diana M. Gentry and David J. Smith and Martha S. Gilmore and David Harry Grinspoon and Mark Alan Bullock and Penelope J. Boston and Grzegorz P. Słowik}, journal={Astrobiology}, year={2021} }
Ancient Venus and Earth may have been similar in crucial ways for the development of life, such as liquid water oceans, land-ocean interfaces, favorable chemical ingredients, and energy pathways. If life ever developed on, or was transported to, early Venus from elsewhere, it might have thrived, expanded, and then survived the changes that have led to an inhospitable surface on Venus today. The Venus cloud layer may provide a refugium for extant life that persisted from an earlier more…
5 Citations
Water–Sulfuric Acid Foam as a Possible Habitat for Hypothetical Microbial Community in the Cloud Layer of Venus
- Environmental ScienceLife
- 2021
It is hypothesize that the unified internal volume of a microbial community habitat is represented by the heterophase liquid-gas foam structure of Venusian clouds, which could harbor a microbialcommunity of different species of (poly)extremophilic microorganisms that are capable of photo- and chemosynthesis and participate in chemical and photochemical reactions, thus supporting ecosystem stability.
Production of ammonia makes Venusian clouds habitable and explains observed cloud-level chemical anomalies
- Environmental Science, PhysicsProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- 2021
The model predicts that the clouds of Venus are not entirely made of sulfuric acid, but are partially composed of ammonium salt slurries, which may be the result of biological production of ammonia in cloud droplets, and predicts that they are more habitable than previously thought, and may be inhabited.
Potential for Phototrophy in Venus' Clouds.
- Environmental Science, PhysicsAstrobiology
- 2021
Venus' signature phototrophic windows and subwindows overlap with the absorption profiles of several photosynthetic pigments, especially bacteriochlorophyll b from intact cells and phycocyanin, and Venus' light, with limited UV flux in the middle and lower clouds, is likely quite favorable for phototrophy.
Phosphorus in the Clouds of Venus: Potential for Bioavailability.
- Environmental Science, PhysicsAstrobiology
- 2021
The VeGa data indicate that a plentiful phosphorus layer exists within a layer that reaches into the lower venusian clouds and exceeds minimum P abundances for terrestrial microbial life and the work combines the results of the VeGa measurements and focuses on P as an inorganic nutrient component and its potential sources and chemical behavior as part of multiple transformations of atmospheric chemistry.
Introducing the Venus Collection-Papers from the First Workshop on Habitability of the Cloud Layer.
- PhysicsAstrobiology
- 2021
We introduce the collection of papers from the first workshop on the habitability of the venusian cloud layer organized by the Roscosmos/IKI-NASA Joint Science Definition Team (JSDT) for Russia's…
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