A study of the University of Colorado at Boulder (USA) revealed that the planet Venus, the second in the solar system, is drying out since it has 100,000 times less water than Earththis is due to a phenomenon called dissociative recombination, in which hydrogen atoms from the neighboring planet escape from its atmosphere, causing all the water it once had to evaporate.
Although the neighboring planet is similar to Earth in composition and size, Billions of years ago Venus contained almost the same amount of water as our planet.
The culprit molecule would be HCO+an ion made up of one hydrogen, one carbon, and one oxygen atom, found high in the atmosphere of Venus.
HCO+ is constantly produced in the atmosphere, but individual ions do not survive long. electrons in the atmosphere They find these ions and recombine to split them in two.
In this process, hydrogen atoms disperse and can even escape into space, depriving Venus of one of the two components of water. Previous research has already pointed to HCO+ as a possible cause of Mars also losing much of its water.
Venus is the second closest planet to the Sun and its surface is made up of volcanoes whose temperature is around 470 degrees, with an atmospheric density one hundred times greater than that of the Earth, with clouds and rain of sulfuric acid.
