Researchers are eager to learn more about the history of Venus, but it may be a long time before humans have the opportunity to go to the planet. Meteorite impacts may have made this easier, because these impacts sent chunks of Venus into space and landed on the moon.
Astronomers think that 700 billion years ago, Venus was much more like Earth than it is today. It may have had a thin atmosphere and liquid water. The presence of water in the lumps on the moon could be measurable, the astronomers say in the scientific journal Planetary Science Journal.
Venus may be hit by large meteorites every hundred million years, but billions of years ago this may have happened more often.
As a result, more than ten billion pieces of Venus were thrown into space, which eventually entered the orbit of the earth and the moon, to end up on the moon. Today, Venus’ atmosphere is too thick for patches of surface to swing from the planet into space.
With the upcoming new moon missions from NASA, a lot of new lunar soil could come to Earth that is suitable for chemical analysis.
The astronomers state that at 0.2 pieces of Venus per million pieces of lunar regolith, Venus still had water for the past 3.5 billion years. That ratio is 0.3 pieces of Venus per million pieces of lunar regolith, if there was still water more than four billion years ago.
– .
