Could Venus Harbor Native Life?

Yes, this is a question people are asking. And it may not be quite as crazy as you might think.

Clearly, there isn't going to be any life on the surface of Venus. It's about 750 degrees too hot there for even the hardiest of single-celled organisms. For life to exist on the Venusian surface, it would have to be beyond anything we've ever seen. Almost beyond the realm of fiction. The upper atmosphere of Venus may be a different story. The pressure and temperature is actually fairly hospitable if you're at the right altitude.

Of course, what would a crazy theory be without evidence? And this time we have some interesting observations from the Japanese space probe Akatsuki, which observed periodic dark patches in the upper atmosphere rich in sulfur. The particles in these patches have the similar dimensions to terrestrial bacteria, and the periodic nature of the patches could indicate a phenomenon similar to algae blooms here on Earth.

So is there life on Venus? Can we add it to the list of places in the Solar System where life likely exists? I'd say probably not. But there's a chance, and it's probably worth checking out. And since Venus is pretty close, we may check it out sometime in the next 10-15 years. We'll see. I won't hold my breath, but I have to say, it would be kind of funny if the first extraterrestrial life we found was on Venus.