Earth's twin planet is being brutally 'peeled'

Findings from the European-Japanese BepiColombo spacecraft may explain how an Earth-like planet became a "hell" .

During the closest flyby of the planet to Earth, the BepiColombo spacecraft of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) brought back some strange data.

BepiColombo flies by the "hell" planet Venus - (Photo: ESA).

Analysis by a team of authors led by Dr. Lina Hadid from the Laboratory of Plasma Physics (LPP) of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) based on BepiColombo data has discovered that this planet is being stripped take over the upper layer of atmosphere.

This causes carbon and oxygen in the thin upper atmosphere to be lost into space.

The authors say this is the first time the loss of positively charged carbon ions has been observed on Venus.

Unlike Earth, Venus does not create an intrinsic magnetic field in its core.

However, a weak comet-shaped induced magnetic field is created around the planet due to the interaction of streams of charged particles emanating from the Sun - the solar wind - with charged particles in the upper atmosphere. above of Venus.

Early Venus had many similarities with Earth, including a significant amount of liquid water.

However, this process of interaction with the solar wind takes away water, leaving an atmosphere consisting mainly of carbon dioxide and a small amount of nitrogen and a few other trace elements.

Therefore, detecting the loss of carbon ions and oxygen can help scientists retrace the path, thereby deducing the mechanism that contributes to a planet being in the habitable zone, very similar to Earth. The land becomes a suffocating "hell" .

Understanding the mechanisms that can destroy a planet that could have life also helps astronomers have more tools to screen extrasolar planets, thereby localizing worlds with living organisms. most potential.