Here we show using three-dimensional global climate model simulations of early Venus and Earth that water clouds—which preferentially form on the nightside, owing to the strong subsolar water vapour absorption—have a strong net warming effect that inhibits surface water condensation even at modest insolations (down to 325 watts per square metre, that is, 0.95 times the Earth solar constant)
This shows that water never condensed and that, consequently, oceans never formed on the surface of Venus
This also implies the existence of another stability state for present-day Earth: the ‘steam Earth’, with all the water from the oceans evaporated into the atmosphere