Life on Venus? Unexplained discovery in the clouds has scientists buzzing:
Something unexpected has been discovered in the cloud decks of our nearest planetary neighbor, Venus. While no one is saying it's aliens just yet, some sort of alien microorganism is on the list of potential explanations for why a chemical that shouldn't be floating around above the planet has been observed there for the first time.
The chemical is phosphine, or PH3, a compound made up of phosphorus attached to three hydrogen atoms. On Earth, certain microbes that thrive in oxygen-free environments, like at a sewage plant, are believed to produce the chemical. The gas is highly toxic to humans and smells like decaying fish.
It was identified in observations of Venus made with telescopes in Hawaii and Chile in 2017 and 2019. Specifically, phosphine was found about 33 to 39 miles (53 to 62 kilometers) above the surface of Venus, a world that is known for being brutally inhospitable, with both extremely hot temperatures and crushing pressures.
[...] Interestingly, however, the altitude where the phosphine was detected is one of the more hospitable areas in the solar system beyond Earth, with temperatures and pressure comparable to the surface of our planet. There is still the problem of the sulfuric acid clouds, however, which would certainly be hostile to much of the life we know, and should also destroy phosphine.
"These are conditions not exactly welcoming to life as we know it," says Brendan Burns, an astrobiologist at the University of New South Wales, Australia.
A team led by Jane Greaves from Cardiff University and the University of Cambridge in the UK lays out the discovery in a paper published Monday in Nature Astronomy. They sought to explain the mysterious presence of PH3 in the clouds, considering various atmospheric, chemical and geological processes. Lightning, volcanoes, the solar wind and even meteors were investigated as possible sources, but none fits the observations.
"If no known chemical process can explain PH3 within the upper atmosphere of Venus, then it must be produced by a process not previously considered plausible for Venusian conditions," the paper reads. "This could be unknown photochemistry or geochemistry, or possibly life."
The scientists go on to "emphasize that the detection of PH3 is not robust evidence for life, only for anomalous and unexplained chemistry."
Also at: cnet, ScienceMag, TechnologyReview, and phys.org
Journal Reference:
Jane S. Greaves, Anita M. S. Richards, William Bains, et al. Phosphine gas in the cloud decks of Venus, Nature Astronomy (DOI: 10.1038/s41550-020-1174-4)
Related Stories
NASA mulls possible mission to Venus after recent discovery of possible life:
NASA is considering approving by next April up to two planetary science missions from four proposals under review, including one to Venus that scientists involved in the project said could help determine whether or not that planet harbors life.
An international research team on Monday described evidence of potential microbes residing in the harshly acidic Venusian clouds: traces of phosphine, a gas that on Earth is produced by bacteria inhabiting oxygen-free environments. It provided strong potential evidence of life beyond Earth.
The U.S. space agency in February shortlisted four proposed missions that are now being reviewed by a NASA panel, two of which would involve robotic probes to Venus. One of those, called DAVINCI+, would send a probe into the Venusian atmosphere.
[...] The search for life elsewhere in the solar system has until now not focused on Venus. In fact, NASA in July launched a next-generation rover to look for traces of potential past life on Mars.
Previously:
Life on Venus? Unexplained Discovery in the Clouds Has Scientists Buzzing
Venus May Have Dozens of Active Volcanoes
NASA Thinks It's Time to Return to Neptune with its Trident Mission
NASA Wants to Send a Probe to Venus That Can Last 60 Days
New Theory Proposes Large Ocean Killed Venus
NASA Concept for a Crewed Airship Mission in Venus's Upper Atmosphere
The Case for Microbial Life in the Atmosphere of Venus
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 14 2020, @11:20PM (7 children)
http://shadetreephysics.com/vel/1918.htm [shadetreephysics.com]
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 14 2020, @11:21PM
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday September 15 2020, @12:23AM (5 children)
Goodness, that site is... weird.
Robert Fritzius has been interested enough to keep that going since 25 May 1997 according to the footer. Amazing.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 15 2020, @12:37AM (2 children)
Perhaps this one is better: https://saturniancosmology.org/epi.php [saturniancosmology.org]
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday September 15 2020, @03:41AM
That one is great! Thanks, very funny.
Unless the author is suffering from a mental health problem, which is possible, in which case I feel bad for laughing.
(Score: 2) by The Vocal Minority on Tuesday September 15 2020, @05:50AM
Good work, love it! One day I will put together a poll of the most entertaining cranks of all time (David Icke, Time Cube etc.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 15 2020, @12:42AM (1 child)
This one has some javascript if you like your site to appear that way:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/aug/23/guardianobituaries.spaceexploration [theguardian.com]
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday September 15 2020, @03:42AM
Meh, not nearly as funny, but thanks.
(Score: 4, Funny) by looorg on Monday September 14 2020, @11:36PM (14 children)
So they have not been watching the History Channel during the last decade or so then ... It's always aliens ...
(Score: 3, Funny) by requerdanos on Monday September 14 2020, @11:40PM (10 children)
Well, also from summary,
leading quite naturally to the first three words of the headline, "Life on Venus".
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday September 14 2020, @11:46PM (6 children)
???????
We'll be running into this for a while. Detecting chemicals from afar is easy than spotting critters directly or sequencing DNA on another planet. But it might just be a new and exciting chemical synthesis. After all, conditions on Venus are a bit extremee.
For exoplanets, it would be nice if green photosynthesizing vegetation could be spotted from light years away, along with biochemical signatures.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday September 14 2020, @11:53PM (5 children)
A nice showing of emission spectra of oxygen, carbon, etc. would be even better than detecting the phosphorous and hydrogen, or maybe even than seeing green-and-blue colored planets. (After all, is it plants and water, or odd colored rock?)
Cnet, by the way, seems to have removed "Life on Venus?" from their headline, leaving it as merely a prominent sub-heading.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 15 2020, @12:01AM (4 children)
There is no other explanation for the phosphine on a rocky planet.
(Score: 3, Funny) by mhajicek on Tuesday September 15 2020, @06:13AM (3 children)
God put it there to deceive us, just like the dinosaur fossils.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 15 2020, @04:59PM (2 children)
Dinosaurs are a farce. 95% of the fossils are discovered outside a replica dinosaur fossil factory in China.
http://www.atlanteanconspiracy.com/2015/09/dinosaur-hoax-dinosaurs-never-existed.html [atlanteanconspiracy.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 15 2020, @09:29PM (1 child)
Why is this place such a magnet for crazies and trolls?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 15 2020, @10:14PM
Most posters here are just set in their ways and boring so cant consider any ideas outside of what they already "know". That isn't meant as an insult, it is natural and adaptive.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday September 15 2020, @01:26PM
According to a chemist on the TV news this morning, it's either life or an undiscovered chemical process. It it is life, then it means life self-generates from non-biological matter easily, meaning there's probably life in many if not most stellar systems,
I'm still skeptical, however. If life came about so easily, why can't we reproduce it or figure out how to?
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Aegis on Tuesday September 15 2020, @02:22PM (1 child)
It's cool. We've learned from the President that so long as you ask it as a question you can say whatever wacky crap you want!
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday September 15 2020, @06:08PM
Betteridge's Law of Headlines [wikipedia.org]
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by leon_the_cat on Tuesday September 15 2020, @10:37AM
From you this statement is a conflict of interest.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday September 15 2020, @01:21PM (1 child)
In Dr. Isaac Asimov's Foundation, there weren't any aliens more advanced than lichen. He was a biochemist. Of course, his studies had little to do with his fiction; see Pate de Fois Gras about a goose that lays golden eggs.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 16 2020, @12:39AM
But intelligent lichen.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 15 2020, @12:05AM (1 child)
Same difference right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 15 2020, @07:12AM
There is another option not mentioned, but more likely than alien life. Panspermia (life from Earth that colonized Venus).
The anomalous chemistry would indicate a lack in our chemistry knowledge of this planet (why wasn't this molecule predicted to be found there?).
Panspermia would indicate life that uses mostly the same building blocks as on earth (read: this molecule). This would be known chemistry and not anomalous.
"Real" alien life would not per se use the same chemistry as we use, also some lack of knowledge in this field as well. Alien life suggested on venus has been mentioned for decades already, so nothing new here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 15 2020, @12:26AM (4 children)
I suppose after Venus doesn’t pan out you’ll then turn your fancy to Europa. Then it’ll be Europa’s sisters. It never ends!
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday September 15 2020, @06:15AM
Attempt no landing there.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday September 15 2020, @08:41AM (2 children)
Venus: hot, but has a pretty acidic personality
Jupiter: size isn't everything
Uranus: let's stop there
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 15 2020, @10:24AM (1 child)
Mercury: Spends too much time in the solarium.
Earth: Has things growing on it.
Mars: Old, worn out and dried up.
Neptune: Distant and aloof.
Pluto : Cold hearted bitch.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday September 16 2020, @12:32PM
Saturn, makes blatant show of being already married.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 15 2020, @10:08AM
There are many ways of producing phosphine. It's not a surprise at all that it would be different from on Jupiter, which is literally made of hydrogen, whereas on Venus hydrogen is hard to come by.
There are already even known processes that produce it on Venus! The question is simply why there are more of the necessary inputs available to those processes. Where is the hydrogen coming from, what is increasing the concentration of phosphorus?
This is so obviously a geology question, even more so than the methane on Mars.