Venus cannot sustain life in the clouds, but Jupiter has potential CNET 1 hr ago © NASA/JPL-Caltech
The clouds of Venus have captivated Earthlings for decades. They form a dazzling mirror that obscures the planet s surface and, in the 1950s, one Israeli scholar even speculated that the clouds may hide a world teeming with insect life capable of enduring the extreme heat.
When Russia s Venera spacecraft took images of the surface in 1975, there were no insects to be found. Venus is a desolate hellscape, the victim of a runaway greenhouse effect that has sent temperatures on the ground soaring to well over 850 degrees Fahrenheit hot enough to melt lead. But in the clouds, more temperate climes await any would-be alien lifeforms.
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