Venus is the closest planet to Earth in the solar system, and it is also one of the most mysterious planets for mankind. You know, although Mercury is far away from Earth, humans know much more about Mercury than about Venus. The reason is simple: it's because Venus is too difficult to survey. Therefore, to this day, the astronomical community has been full of huge controversy about the history of Venus.
1. The difficulty of exploring Venus
Although Venus is much closer to Earth than Mars, the real situation on the surface of Venus has been known since the 1960s.
In the late 19th century, humans were able to observe the surface of Mars from a distance through astronomical telescopes, and even Italian astronomers believed that there were canals on Mars, and concluded that Mars was an arid planet, otherwise Martians would not have built canals. Although this assumption is wrong, Mars does have canyons and other geographical phenomena. In the 19th century, humans were able to see that Mars has canals/canyons because the atmosphere of Mars is very thin, so it is easy to observe.
However, Venus's atmosphere is very thick, so human observations of Venus often block the view because of the atmosphere. Therefore, for a long time, human beings have believed that there may be life or even civilization on Venus.
It wasn't until the 1960s, when Soviet probes visited Venus frequently, that they discovered the true state of Venus: almost like a legendary hell: the surface temperature was four or five hundred degrees Celsius, and there was frequent sulfuric acid rain. A lightning bolt can last more than ten minutes. And the atmospheric pressure is high. This environment also made the Soviets realize that there could be no living life on Venus – and that the Soviets' probes would be scrapped due to sulfuric acid erosion not long after they worked on Venus.
Therefore, there has been little progress in the exploration of Venus since then, and the enthusiasm is not great.
At the same time, the environment of Venus also means that it is difficult for humans to understand Venus more deeply.
2. The ocean of Venus
Among the photos that Soviet probes sent back to Earth, photographs of abandoned urban agglomerations appeared. This photograph has led mankind to a bold conjecture: did Venus have a civilization in the past, or ancient Venus, but because of the deterioration of Venus's environment, the Venus residents moved away in groups, or because of the deterioration of the environment, civilization perished?
As a result, humanity became interested in the history of Venus. However, mainstream scientists generally believe that there is no civilization on Venus, and that urban agglomerations are actually a miscalculation.
And there is also a huge controversy about the history of Venus: does Venus have oceans?
There are two schools of scientists on this issue.
One school of thought believes that Venus used to have oceans, but eventually the oceans disappeared due to the solar wind. The disappearance of Venus's oceans has also caused the warming effect on Venus to become more frequent, eventually resulting in the current state of Venus. And scientists have also come up with evidence to prove that Venus had oceans in ancient times.
According to the derivation results, scientists believe that Venus did not disappear from the ocean, but that Venus failed to form an ocean in the first place, and in the absence of an ocean, geological activities were frequent, which led to the intensification of the greenhouse effect and the formation of the hellish environment of Venus.
Both schools of scientists have theoretical support, but one is bound to be wrong. However, after all, it is impossible for human beings to conduct in-depth exploration of Venus at the moment, so it is believed that whether the ocean of Venus has ever existed will plague mankind for many years.