Unexpected discovery: Some forms of life may be hiding on Venus

In a surprising way, scientists have proven that life can reside in the deadliest place on Venus: the Acid Cloud Sea.

According to Sci-News, scientists have long speculated about the possibility of life existing on Venus , not on its hot surface but in the cloud layers at an altitude of about 48-60 km. where the temperature is equivalent to the Earth's surface temperature.

But there's a big obstacle: This sea of ​​clouds contains concentrated sulfuric acid .

Venus - (Photo: NASA).

Sulfuric acid is a "death" compound , extremely corrosive, devastating biological structures.

However, a research team led by Dr. Janusz Petkowski and Prof. Sara Seager from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT - USA) has found 19 "immortal" amino acids.

Tested in an environment simulating the Venusian cloud sea, these 19 amino acids remained stable, without chemical reactions or changes.

For Earth, amino acids are the "building blocks of life". Therefore, finding amino acids that can exist despite the presence of concentrated acids shows that life is still capable of slipping through the "narrow gap" to survive on our neighboring planet.

This new discovery also proves that sulfuric acid is not a solvent completely hostile to organic chemistry, paving the way for the possibility of life existing in other extreme environments.

With Venus, the new discovery seems to remove one of the last barriers to the possibility of life surviving.

Previously, other MIT scientists had discovered signs of phosphine, one of the recognized biological signatures in planetary science.

Above all, there is something more fundamental that has been recognized by science: In the Goldilocks zone of life of the Solar System there is not only Earth, but also Venus and Mars. In which Venus is said to be the twin brother of Earth when it was born.

The new research has just been published in the scientific journal Astrobiology.