TY - JOUR

T1 - Water activity in Venus's uninhabitable clouds and other planetary atmospheres

AU - Hallsworth, John E.

AU - Koop, Thomas

AU - Dallas, Tiffany

AU - Zorzano, Maria-Paz

AU - Burkhardt, Juergen

AU - Golyshina, Olga

AU - Martin-Torres, Javier

AU - Dymond, Marcus K.

AU - Ball, Philip

AU - McKay, Christopher P.

PY - 2021/7/1

Y1 - 2021/7/1

N2 - The recent suggestion of phosphine in Venus’s atmosphere has regenerated interest in the idea of life in clouds. However, such analyses usually neglect the role of water activity, which is a measure of the relative availability of water, in habitability. Here we compute the water activity within the clouds of Venus and other Solar System planets from observations of temperature and water-vapour abundance. We find water-activity values of sulfuric acid droplets, which constitute the bulk of Venus’s clouds, of ≤0.004, two orders of magnitude below the 0.585 limit for known extremophiles. Considering other planets, ice formation on Mars imposes a water activity of ≤0.537, slightly below the habitable range, whereas conditions are biologically permissive (>0.585) at Jupiter’s clouds (although other factors such as their composition may play a role in limiting their habitability). By way of comparison, Earth’s troposphere conditions are, in general, biologically permissive, whereas the atmosphere becomes too dry for active life above the middle stratosphere. The approach used in the current study can also be applied to extrasolar planets.

AB - The recent suggestion of phosphine in Venus’s atmosphere has regenerated interest in the idea of life in clouds. However, such analyses usually neglect the role of water activity, which is a measure of the relative availability of water, in habitability. Here we compute the water activity within the clouds of Venus and other Solar System planets from observations of temperature and water-vapour abundance. We find water-activity values of sulfuric acid droplets, which constitute the bulk of Venus’s clouds, of ≤0.004, two orders of magnitude below the 0.585 limit for known extremophiles. Considering other planets, ice formation on Mars imposes a water activity of ≤0.537, slightly below the habitable range, whereas conditions are biologically permissive (>0.585) at Jupiter’s clouds (although other factors such as their composition may play a role in limiting their habitability). By way of comparison, Earth’s troposphere conditions are, in general, biologically permissive, whereas the atmosphere becomes too dry for active life above the middle stratosphere. The approach used in the current study can also be applied to extrasolar planets.

U2 - 10.1038/s41550-021-01391-3

DO - 10.1038/s41550-021-01391-3

M3 - Article

VL - 5

SP - 665

EP - 675

JO - Nature Astronomy

JF - Nature Astronomy

SN - 2397-3366

IS - 7

ER -