Acidic clouds of Venus could harbour life
Venus is usually written off as a potential haven for life because of its hellishly hot and acidic surface. But conditions in the atmosphere at an altitude of around 50 kilometres are relatively hospitable: the temperature is about 70 °C, with a pressure of about one atmosphere.
Although the clouds are very acidic, this region also has the highest concentration of water droplets in the Venusian atmosphere. "From an astrobiology point of view, Venus is not hopeless," says Dirk Schulze-Makuch from the University of Texas at El Paso.
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Even more mysterious is the presence of carbonyl sulphide. This gas is so difficult to produce inorganically that it is sometimes considered an unambiguous indicator of biological activity.
Do you have a reference for this? COS is readily produced in gasification processes and is generally toxic for microbes, except some thermophilic anaerobes. Making it pure can be tough, but making it and CS2 ain't too tough.
Life in the clouds, huh? Something to ponder.