Necessary Conditions for Venus to be Habitable

Venus shares many similarities with Earth such as size, composition, and position from the Sun. This raises the question of whether it has the potential to develop into a habitable planet, or if it has been habitable in the past. One of the crucial conditions for planetary habitability for life as we know it is the planets ability to host liquid water at the surface. We aim to determine the possibilities and conditions necessary for liquid water to exist at the Venusian surface. We establish the processes that effect the rate of cooling and the rate at which the surface of Venus is cooling. We determine the rate of cooling by calculating heat flux out of the planet's interior and into a thick rocky surface layer relative to heat flux out of the surface layer and into the atmosphere. If heat flux out of the surface layer is higher than that out of the atmosphere, the planet will be heating up. If the opposite were happening, the planet will be cooling down. In order for liquid water to be viable at the surface of Venus, the latter will need to happen. We model different scenarios of thermal evolution throughout this project while using Earth as a reference due to their similarities in composition, size, and density. Currently, liquid water is not feasible on the Venusian surface.