MICROBES may be alive and well in Venus’s clouds. It’s a controversial idea, but some scientists are becoming more convinced that microorganisms can live in the planet’s clouds, sheltered from ultraviolet radiation by molecular rings of sulphur.
Venus might once have been warm and wet, and a potential breeding ground for life, but at some point a runaway greenhouse effect dried the planet out and heated its surface to more than 480 °C. A few scientists have argued that if Venus’s climate change was slow enough for life to adapt, microbes could survive there today, living in acidic clouds at…
