Planet Venus is not the best world to search for extraterrestrial life. It has a toxic atmosphere 90 times thicker than Earth's and its surface temperatures are hot enough to melt lead.
A new study, however, suggests that once, the Earth's twin likely had stable temperatures and even hosted liquid water as earlier suggested by data from NASA's Pioneer 12 mission.
In 1978, the mission reached Venus and found indications suggesting the planet may have once hosted oceans on its surface.
Study researcher Michael Way, from the Goddard Institute of Space Science, and colleagues created five computer simulations that considered the kind of water coverage Venus had in the past that would have led to its conditions today.
Three of the five simulations assumed the current topography of Venus and considered a deep ocean, a shallow layer of water, and trace amounts of water in the soil.
The researchers then simulated the environmental conditions on the planet using a 3D general circulation model, which accounted for the increase in solar radiation as the sun warmed up, and changing atmospheric conditions.
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