Abstract

Venus and Earth are astrophysically indistinguishable yet possess divergent climates. Being able to identify a Venus-like exoplanet will be paramount as we begin to characterise the atmospheres of small rocky worlds. Moreover, whilst Venusian surface conditions are hostile to life, the permanent global cloud layer intersects the region of the atmosphere where pressure-temperature conditions would be suitable to life, and this has led to suggestions of a possible aerial biosphere in the clouds. In this talk I will present a chemically self-consistent model of the atmosphere of Venus and discuss two applications of this model: simulating photochemistry of Venus-like exoplanets around M- and K- Dwarf host stars, and testing metabolisms that have been proposed for hypothetical microbial life in the Venusian cloud layer.