Despite recent reports of possible fossils in Martian
meteorites, Venus, not Mars, may hold the most promise for
harboring life elsewhere in our solar system, according to a
University of Colorado at Boulder professor. Some four billion
years ago when the sun was 40 percent cooler than today, Earth
and Mars probably were frozen, said CU-Boulder Assistant
Professor David Grinspoon of the astrophysical and planetary
sciences department. But Venus, closer to the sun, may have had
warm liquid oceans and a mild climate at the time. "There is
some reason to believe Venus may have been the best haven for
life in the early solar system," he said. With 900 degree
Fahrenheit surface temperatures and an atmosphere permeated by
carbon dioxide, chlorine and sulfuric acid clouds today, Venus
seems inhospitable to "our kind of life," he said. "But we
really don't know much about life -- its requirements, it1s
differences and how to recognize it." Humans on Earth "may have
evolved from life forms provided by Venus," Grinspoo