Venus Used to Have Oceans But Where Did the Water Go?

Scientists say the planet’s “electric wind” may have caused the lack of water. However, no traces of water can be found in Venus’ atmosphere due to a strong electric wind so powerful that it energized electrons to accelerate beyond the planet’s gravity- a phenomenon made possible by the planet’s distance to the sun.

Furthermore, its atmosphere has between 10,000 and 100,000 times less water than that of the atmosphere surrounding Earth, despite the fact that its pressure is roughly 100 times higher. The steam dissociated into hydrogen and oxygen. But the rest of the oxygen appears to have been lifted out of the atmosphere, to be carried away by the stream of charged particles flowing out from the sun, they said.

The study posted in AGU Publications says that the existence of an “ambipolar” electric field is vital on every planet as it helps ions overcome gravity.

According to Phys.Org, Collinson said that the idea that water could be separated out into its components and the oxygen could be sucked away off into space because of the electric field of a planet was “amazing, shocking”.

Scientists thought it was the solar wind eroding the remainder of an ocean’s worth of oxygen and water slowly from Venus’ upper atmosphere, but the new findings suggest it was an aggressive electric wind instead.

Recently, the American space agency NASA reported on its website that the team of scientists working on the mission have kind of solved the mystery behind the disappearance of the oceans from the surface of the planets.

“We don’t really know why it is so much stronger at Venus than Earth, but, we think it might have something to do with Venus being closer to the sun, and the ultraviolet sunlight being twice as bright”, Collinson said. “It’s a challenging thing to measure and even at Earth to date all we have are upper limits on how strong it might be”.

According to the study, Venus’ surface water may have first evaporated into steam. However, in Venus’ case, the electric field is five times stronger than Earth’s ionesphere, resulting to the planet’s loss of heavy ions including oxygen, waterforms and water species.

Sunlight then breaks the water down in the upper atmosphere and the components are whisked away by the electric field.

If the oxygen ions were going to make it off of Venus, they would have to be pushed by a strong electric force, which Venus happens to have.

The research findings might have implications in the studies to look out for other worlds outside our solar system.

In a tweet, Collinson described the process as a “self-lick ice cream cone”, as the electric winds happening in the atmosphere are generated completely by Venus.

Taking the electric wind into account will also help astronomers improve estimates of the size and location of habitable zones around other stars.

Indeed, the electric field is so strong that it generates a “wind” that acts more like solar wind than gusts of air. NASA-funded researchers also collaborated in the investigation. But Venus’s thick atmosphere is mysteriously dry.

“Although Mars gets the lion’s share of attention for future human missions, scientists have pointed to the Venusian atmosphere as a candidate for floating colonies”, The Washington Post writes. Andrew Coates, from the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at the University College London, UK.