Molecules vital for life could survive in Venus’s acid clouds


The acid clouds surrounding Venus might not be hostile to some of life’s key molecules

JAXA/ISAS/DARTS/Kevin M. Gill

Amino acids can survive in concentrated sulphuric acid similar to that found in Venus’s clouds. This doesn’t make Earth-like life more likely in these clouds, but it does open the possibility of a kind of life based on sulphuric acid instead of water.

Whether Venus’s clouds can harbour life has been hotly argued by scientists in recent years, especially after phosphine, a molecule produced predominantly by living organisms, was spotted in the planet’s…



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