Like Earth and Mars, Venus is also surrounded by an ozone layer, a new discovery by the European Space Agency's Venus Express spacecraft revealed.

The presence of ozone layer, high in the Venus’ atmosphere, indicates that there could be some sort of life on the second-closest planet to the Sun. Thus, the discovery is expected to help scientists refine their search for life on other planets of the solar system.

The thin layer of ozone around Venus is hundred of times less dense than the Earth's, but scientists will be able to set parameters to determine the likelihood of life on Venus by comparing the Venus’ ozone layer with that of Earth, which is abound in life.

Lead author Franck Montmessin, of the France-based LATMOS atmospheric research centre, said, “We can use these new observations to test and refine the scenarios for the detection of life on other worlds.”

The ozone is detectable because it absorbs some of the ultraviolet from the sunlight. The ozone layer on Venus is formed when the sunlight hit carbon dioxide molecules and breaks them up to release oxygen atoms.

The released oxygen atoms combine to form two-atom oxygen molecules, but sometimes they recombine to make three-atom ozone molecules.

The discovery was recently presented at the recently held joint meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences and the European Planetary Science Congress.