Scientists detect oxygen in Venus' atmosphere
There is surprising news, namely scientists detected oxygen in the atmosphere of the planet Venus. Related to oxygen, oxygen accounts for about 21 percent of the air on Earth, and the rest is nitrogen. And most living things, including humans, need oxygen to survive.
Earth's planetary neighbor, Venus, offers quite a different story. Its dangerously thick atmosphere is dominated by carbon dioxide, at 96.5 percent, with small amounts of nitrogen and gases.
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| Researchers have used data from SOFIA, a telescope inside a Boeing 747, to detect atomic oxygen on Venus. (Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech) |
Oxygen is almost absent. Venus receives far less scientific attention than other planets like Mars, so direct detection of oxygen is still difficult.
Scientists Detect Atomic Oxygen in a Thin Layer Flanked by Two Layers of Venus' Atmosphere
Using instruments aboard the SOFIA air observatory, a Boeing 747SP aircraft modified to carry infrared telescopes in a joint project between NASA and the German Aerospace Center, scientists have now detected atomic oxygen in a thin layer flanked by two layers of Venus' atmosphere.
They noted that this atomic oxygen, which consists of one oxygen atom, is different from molecular oxygen, which consists of two oxygen atoms and can be inhaled.
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The researchers directly detected oxygen for the first time on the side of Venus facing the sun, where oxygen is produced in the atmosphere, and also detected oxygen on the side with its back to the sun, where oxygen was previously discovered by ground-based telescopes in Hawaii. Venus itself rotates much slower than Earth.
"The atmosphere of Venus is very dense. Its composition is also very different from Earth's," said Heinz-Wilhelm Hübers, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature Communications.
The thick atmosphere on the second planet from the sun traps heat in an uncontrollable greenhouse effect.