She added: “Venus has been ignored by NASA for so long. Many scientists think that Venus was once covered in water and possessed an atmosphere where life as we know it could have flourished. There was life here then, even an entire biosphere that did not survive in the oxygen-rich environment that later developed. And much as Earth over time became a home for jellyfish, ferns, dinosaurs and Homo sapiens, Venus was transformed by something into a hell. The dense atmosphere of Venus exerts a pressure of more than 1,300 pounds per square inch on anything at the surface.

Source: New York Times September 14, 2020 15:00 UTC