How Atmospheric Loss Shaped Venus: Toxic Planet History

Did you know that Venus might have looked like a twin of Earth with blue oceans billions of years ago? Scientists now look at this glowing orange sphere and see a warning about how quickly a climate can change. You are looking at a neighbor that lost almost all its liquid water to the cold vacuum of space. Venus sits closer to the Sun than Earth - it receives a much higher intensity of sunlight - this heat caused early oceans to boil away into the atmosphere as thick vapor. Because water vapor traps heat, it created a loop that made the surface hotter and hotter until the planet became a desert.