Astronomers observed a huge scar on Jupiter on July 20, thought to be caused by a comet or asteroid impact. Now a similar scar has appeared on Venus. Because Venus is an inner planet, it is less likely that this scar was caused by an incoming object. However, if it is volcanic in origin, it would have been the result of an extraordinary eruption. It is also possible that it was caused by a wave of charged particles from the sun, but this is unlikely because no such wave was recorded on earth. If it is the result of a strike by space rock, it could mean that a significant number of undetected large objects are presently entering our solar system, and are reaching the inner planets.read more

The way to solve global warming here on earth might come from observations of Venus. Was that planet just like earth?BEFORE global warming happened there?

BBC News reports that “data from a European probe orbiting Venus paints a picture of a planet that may once have been like Earth, but later evolved in a very different way. Venus has undergone runaway greenhouse warming, where trapped solar radiation has heated the surface to an average temperature of 872 degrees Fahrenheit.”
read more

With Mars closer to Earth than it has been since prehistoric times, scientists hope to learn if there is (or ever was) life on Mars. They once assumed that the hostile environment of Venus meant there was never life on that planet, but now they’ve changed their minds. Since finding life in incredibly harsh places here on Earth, they now think we’ll eventually find signs of life on Venus as well. If life turns out to be fairly common, there’s a much greater chance we’ll meet another highly-developed form of it one day.
read more

Although Earth and Venus are very similar in size, mass and density, Venus is covered in a thick layer of carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid that traps heat in and leads to extreme warming, which has made the planet much hotter. Average temperatures on Venus average about 800 degrees Fahrenheit. These inferno-like conditions have led some to call it “Earth’s evil twin.”

“Venus and Earth have taken different paths,” says Larry Esposito, a planetary astronomer at the University of Colorado. “But human activity is leading Earth in the same direction [as Venus]. If we can understand Venus history better, we can fine tune our models for Earth.”
read more