Terraforming Venus

While Mars gets most of the attention, Venus might actually be a better candidate for human habitation. Terraforming a planet is no easy task, but Venus could be a second home for humanity with the right steps. “Terraforming” means to transform a place so that it supports human life. These steps include eliminating the greenhouse effect, modifying Venus’s surface to become “earthlike,” and creating an atmosphere that human life can thrive in. Venus may seem unlivable with temperatures about 30-70°C even 30 miles above the surface and winds that measure up to 224 mph, but it shares a few key similarities with Earth (NASA, 2025). Unlike Mars, Venus has 90% of its surface gravity, which is important for long term human health. Venus also has an induced magnetic field which is useful in keeping out harmful charged particles that are emitted by the sun (Williams, 2025). UV Radiation could contribute to an increased risk of cancer (Ultraviolet Radiation and Sun Exposure, 2025).

The first problem is Venus’ deadly atmosphere made up of 96.5% CO2 (Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy). CO2traps in heat, creating an average surface temperature of 452°C (Landis, 2011). The sun contributes to the blistering heat, and one way to cool down Venus is to block the sun. This can be done by creating large shields that reflect the sun's rays back to itself, effectively cooling Venus down because of no light entering the atmosphere. This will reduce the amount of sun rays coming to Venus that can turn into liquid. The process of cooling down Venus will take a few decades, but after Venus cools down to 31℃, CO2 will pool onto Venus as a liquid. The oceans and pools created on Venus will freeze up once the temperature falls to -81°C. At that point, Venus’ atmosphere will mostly be made up of nitrogen
gas, and the surface pressure will drop down to only 3 times the amount of Earth’s (Williams, 2025).

The next step to terraforming Venus is finding out where the frozen CO2is going to be placed. Putting fake land over the frozen CO2 may lead to problems in the future if volcanoes create any rupture where CO2 could spill out of the ground. A safer option would be to drill out the CO2 from the ground and remove it from the atmosphere completely, although it would take an enormous amount of resources to do so (Squyres, 2024). The next step is to bring in water to fill in Venus. Europa, a small moon orbiting Jupiter, has twice as much water as the Earth, making it a viable option for water retrieval (John Wenz and Manasee Wagh, Popular Mechanics). Another option is to take water from Saturn’s moon, Encludus, which has oceans underneath its icy exterior. Water could be taken from both planets and transferred to Venus. Space crafts could drop water that will turn into snow on Venus. Transporting water from the Gallian moon through space crafts to Venus will take a long time, but will help create an atmosphere that allows humans to breathe on Venus.

While the atmosphere is primed for life, Venus’ atmospheric temperature remains below freezing. If the original mirrors were moved out of their places that kept Venus freezing, Venus would heat back up to 425°C and undo all the progress made in terraforming the planet. Light could be artificially added so the mirrors could stay in the palace but technology may not have that kind of innovation in the future. One way to add back heat to Venus in a controlled way is to create moving mirrors that simulate the Earth's day and night cycle (Landis, 2011). This will make sure that Venus will receive the appropriate amount of light for organisms to live on it.

The last step is to add oxygen into the atmosphere with cyanobacteria, which first appeared on Earth 3.5 billion years ago. Cyanobacteria are organisms that evolved to be able to
perform photosynthesis. Cyanobacteria can utilize the water on Venus and use photosynthesis to release oxygen into the air. Additionally, cyanobacteria can convert nitrogen into ammonia and nitrate which improves soil organic quality and nitrogen enrichment (Dasgupta, Kumar, Miglani, Mishra, Amrita Panda, Bisht, Recent Advancement in Microbial Biotechnology, 2024). This is important to human life as ammonia and nitrate are important for food production. This process will eventually create an atmosphere that can sustain more complex organisms such as humans.

Terraforming is an arduous process that will only be finished over multiple generations. With advancing technologies and the hard work of engineers and scientists, turning Venus from a deathly planet into a second home may become a reality.


References

Landis, G. A. (2011). Terraforming Venus: A Challenging Project for Future Colonization. ResearchGate, 1-7. https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2011-7215
Landis, Geoffrey. (2011). Terraforming Venus: A Challenging Project for Future Colonization. 10.2514/6.2011-7215.
Nasa. (2025, May 1). Venus Facts. Nasa. Retrieved May 1, 2025, from
https://science.nasa.gov/venus/venus-facts/
Nawaz, T., Joshi, N., Nelson, D., Saud, S., Abdelsalam, N. R., Abdelhamid, M. M.A., Jaremko, M., Rahman, T. U., & Fahad, S. (n.d.). Harnessing the potential of nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria: A rich bio-resource for sustainable soil fertility and enhanced crop productivity. ScienceDirect, 36, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eti.2024.103886 Squyres, S.W. (2025, May 7). Venus. Encyclopedia Britannica.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Venus-planet
United States Environmental Protection Agency. (2025, March 20). Ultraviolet (UV) Radiation and Sun Exposure. United States Environmental Protection Agency. Retrieved May 3, 2025, from https://www.epa.gov/radtown/ultraviolet-uv-radiation-and-sun-exposure
Williams, D. R. (2024, January 11). Venus Fact Sheet. Nasa. Retrieved May 1, 2025, from https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/venusfact.html