New explanation suggests how Venus dried up

Scientists have been wondering how Venus dried up, which believed to have once hosted abundant water resources, but now they may have found an explanation for that.

A recent study published in the journal Nature revealed that Venus lost its water due to a chemical reaction called HCO+ dissociative recombination, reported Newsweek.

The sister planet of Earth has a thick atmosphere made of carbon, with hot surface temperatures.

Martin van Kranendonk, an astrobiology and geology professor at Curtin University, told the outlet: "Venus is not a nice place. Metal space-exploration landers melt in minutes. Mean surface temperature is 867 degrees F. This is because 1) it is closer to the Sun than Earth, so warmer, and 2) because it has a super-greenhouse atmosphere composed of 96% CO2 (carbon dioxide). Life would literally cook on the surface now and be reduced to tar."

It has been believed that Venus had abundant water resources which over time evaporated due to a runaway greenhouse affect.

Earlier assumptions noted that water was lost by a hydrodynamic outflow process in which how gas escapes from the atmosphere of a planet. However, it was not enough to dry up the planet.

"This process nearly doubles the Venus H escape rate and, consequently, doubles the amount of present-day volcanic water outgassing and/or impactor infall required to maintain a steady-state atmospheric water abundance.”

The atmospheric pressure at Venus is about 92 times that of Earth’s.

The terrain is rocky and covered with sulphuric dust.