Venus Splits Into 467°C Surface and 50-Km Cloud Layer With Earth-Like Pressure
Updated
Updated · ScienceBlog.com · Aug 10
Venus Splits Into 467°C Surface and 50-Km Cloud Layer With Earth-Like Pressure
2 articles · Updated · ScienceBlog.com · Aug 10
Summary
467°C heat and about 93 times Earth’s pressure make Venus’s surface the solar system’s most hostile landing zone, hot enough to melt lead and crush hardware within hours.
50 kilometers up, conditions shift sharply: NASA puts temperatures at 30–70°C and pressure near Earth sea level inside Venus’s global cloud deck.
That contrast comes from a runaway greenhouse effect, with a carbon-dioxide atmosphere—about 96% CO2—trapping heat so efficiently that day-night surface temperatures barely change.
The milder band is still not survivable for humans because it sits in sulfuric-acid clouds, though it has inspired floating-mission concepts such as NASA Langley’s HAVOC airship.
Venus’s split environment also keeps alive debates over past habitability and possible microbial life in the clouds, but both remain unproven.