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Scientists think they've found a sure signal of extra-terrestrial life. Phosphine is highly toxic and hails from the bowels of penguins, badgers and fish, among other places that you'd never want to visit. In general, most life-forms that need oxygen like we do stay far away from phosphine. But now scientists at MIT say that phosphine can only be produced in one way: by anaerobic organisms such as bacteria that can thrive without oxygen. This means that if astronomers were able to spot phosphine in the atmosphere of another rocky planet, "it would be an unmistakable sign of extraterrestrial life," according to a release from MIT.
"Here on Earth, oxygen is a really impressive sign of life," explained MIT research scientist Clara Sousa-Silva. "But other things besides life make oxygen too. It's important to consider stranger molecules that might not be made as often, but if you do find them on another planet, there's only one explanation."
Phosphine has been spotted in space, in the atmospheres of gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn, as well as in gas jets coming off the comet 67/P visited by the Rosetta spacecraft. But if it were spotted around a more Earth-like planet, it would be a sign of some sort of action below.
Sousa-Silva led a team that spent several years ruling out all possibilities that phosphine could be created by anything else but anaerobic organisms. Their conclusions were published in a paper in the journal Astrobiology in November.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Ron on Tuesday December 24 2019, @02:57AM (5 children)
"phosphine can only be produced in one way: by anaerobic organisms"
"Phosphine has been spotted in space, in the atmospheres of gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn"
Either someone is seriously wrong, or we just found proof of life on Jupiter and Saturn. Why is that not the headline? Did I miss something? Is this already common knowledge?
I've always thought the wild color bands of Jupiter were probably due to some kind of atmospheric life forms. It's the only planet more colorful than Earth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 24 2019, @03:05AM (3 children)
There are several non-biological reactions that make phosphine. I don't know if any are likely, but nor is anything else thermodynamically unfavorable, yet such compounds still exist.
(Score: 2) by pipedwho on Tuesday December 24 2019, @08:03AM (2 children)
Which nullifies the first statement. So either way, something is wrong with the set of assumptions being made by the researchers.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday December 24 2019, @09:37AM (1 child)
Or with the sciency-reporter.
Have you RTFA, the original one I mean?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by pipedwho on Wednesday December 25 2019, @10:03AM
Read the article? No, I shot from the hip on this one based on the summary.
More accurately, I should have written:
"So either way, something is wrong with the set of assumptions being asserted in the summary."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 24 2019, @09:47AM
Mmmm... maybe not?
Let me see if I can highlight the relevant fragment in TFS
Probably, in a low gravity, there aren't enough conditions to have energies/pressure high enough to create the compound in detectable concentrations.