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'Electric Winds' responsible for Death of Venus

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ANI New Delhi

Venus, ironically named after the goddess of love, is actually a planet body of fire and desolation, with rivers and seas long dead, and a scorched surface, now dry and acrid. But once, in a bygone age, Venus was much like Earth, a planet filled with the lifeblood of the cosmos, water.

With temperatures rising up to 460 degrees Celsius, many speculate that the once water filled planet simply evaporated. But this leaves many unanswered questions, such as how all that steam exited the atmosphere.

That secret lies with electric winds, a "monster of a force" as referred to by NASA.

Electric winds are a stream of charged particles emitted from the Venus's powerful electrical field. They have the power to break apart the molecular structure of water and expel them from the atmosphere, as reported in the findings of the Venus Express, a European Space Agency spacecraft.

 

Both Venus and Mars lie in the habitable zone from the sun, yet true habitability depends on a myriad of factors.

With a growing search for habitable planets in the cosmos, professionals believe that electric winds should be viewed as another possible deterrent to life in the stars.

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First Published: Jun 24 2016 | 11:48 AM IST

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