Escape to Venus

Venus is famously unpleasant. The hottest planet in the solar system, it can experience temperatures of a more-than-balmy 470 degrees Celsius. And if you think you’d be praying for rain on a day like that, think again, because those cooling droplets are likely to be sulfuric acid. Also, the atmosphere is so thick that standing on the surface would feel like a mile under the ocean for the briefest of moments before death.

However, despite all that, scientists have now detected what they think may be signs of life. A whiff of phosphine gas, which smells a bit like garlic or rotting fish, has been detected in the Venusian air and this is normally produced by something biological.

It was already known that at about 30 miles high in the atmosphere, the temperature is about the same as the surface of the Earth. So if you’d been put off going on holiday after checking out Venus’s “weather”, you might want to reconsider. Just be careful where the space taxi drops you off. But, given Brexit Britain is turning out to be a place that scorns the rule of law, some of us may wish to permanently relocate.