Venus may have oceans of carbon dioxide - VIDEO Venus is often called Earth's twin because it is the rest of the world more similar to Earth by weight, size, distance from the Sun, and chemical composition. Nevertheless, even though the Earth is a haven for life, Venus appears hellish planet with a terrible atmosphere and clouds of sulfuric acid, caustic that harbor desert, hot enough to melt lead.
Although Venus is now extremely hot and dry, once on it could be oceans on Earth. Previous studies have suggested that in the atmosphere of Venus is enough water to last it could cover the planet ocean depth of 25 meters - if all this water somehow fell as rain. But the planet is too hot water has cooled down and settled, in spite of its volume.
Instead, the water of the seas, scientists have suggested that Venus once could have in Oceania from liquid carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is abundant on Venus.
"At the moment the atmosphere of Venus is represented mostly carbon dioxide, 96.5% of the total," - said study author Dima Bolmatov, a theoretical physicist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
Carbon dioxide is well known to the world as a greenhouse gas that traps heat, warming the planet, is exhaled by animals and used by plants during photosynthesis. Although this substance can exist in solid, liquid and gaseous form, at a certain critical point, combining temperature and pressure, carbon dioxide can pass in "supercritical" state. It can have the properties of both liquids and gases. Dissolving metals like a liquid, but the flow, like a gas.
To see what might be the effects of Venus with supercritical carbon dioxide Bolmatov and his colleagues studied the unusual properties of this substance. Such substances, scientists still know little.
It is usually assumed that the physical properties of supercritical fluids are gradually changed along with pressure and temperature. But computer simulation of molecular activity showed that in the supercritical state such matter can dramatically shift from gas to liquid properties.
The atmospheric pressure on the surface of Venus now 90 times higher than on the earth. But in the early days of the planet, this pressure could be ten times higher. So could last a relatively long time, from 100 to 200 million years old. Under such conditions, the carbon dioxide could be formed into a supercritical fluid behavior, said Bolmatov.
"This, in turn, makes possible such geological features of Venus as gorges and valleys, like the mouth of the river area, plains and prints other activities similar to the supercritical carbon dioxide fluid," - said Bolmatov resource Space.com.
Scientists have found that depending on the pressure and temperature of the cluster gas-supercritical carbon dioxide (Michael D1) could be collected in the "bubbles" of gas, covered with a thick layer of liquid.
Bolmatov and his colleagues are going to conduct experiments that will determine when the transition from gaseous to liquid properties of the carbon dioxide in the supercritical state.
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