Scientists have stunned the world for the last timeClaiming to have discovered the ear Phosphine traces In Venetian clouds. New research suggests this gas – in an exciting way, Produced by microorganismsThey are not really responsible for the signal they are looking for. Instead, it was potentially sulfur dioxide, which is not exciting.
Extraordinary Research Is being challenged by a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal last September, which is currently in print. Available On archive. This is not the first paper for this Critic The obvious discovery of phosphine on Venus, and it may not be the last.
It was a revelation that phosphin could be present on Venus that blew our minds, and that’s because living beings are the only known source of foul-smelling gas. The team responsible for the apparent discovery, led by Cardiff University astronomer Jane Greaves, found evidence in spectral signals collected by two radio dishes: the James Clark Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) and the Atkama Large Millimeter / Submillimeter Array (AL). Spectral lines at certain wavelengths indicate the presence of certain chemicals, and in this case they indicated the presence of phosphine in the Venetian cloud layer.
The authors of the nature study were not claiming that life is on Venus. Instead, he was asking the scientific community to explain his rather bizarre observation. Indeed, it was an exceptional claim, as it indicated that Venus, one of the most uninhabited planets in the Solar System, could actually be habitable, floating through microscopic living clouds.
Alas, this case does not appear.
“Instead of phosphine in the new Venus clouds, the data are consistent with an alternative hypothesis: they were looking for sulfur dioxide,” explained Victoria Meadows, co-author of the new study at Washington University. Statement. “Sulfur dioxide is the most common chemical compound in Venus’s atmosphere, and is not considered a sign of life.”
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Meadows, along with researchers from NASA, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the University of California, Riverside, came to this conclusion by modeling the conditions inside the Venus atmosphere, which they did to reinterpret the radio data collected by the original team.
Andrew Linkowski, a researcher with UW, said this is what is known as the radiative transfer model, and includes data from many decades of value observations of Venus’s resources, including observations on Earth and spacecraft missions such as the Venus Express. Is. Department of Astronomy and lead author of the paper in the statement.
Equipped with the model, the researchers simulated spectral lines produced by phosphine and sulfur at multiple atmospheric altitudes on Venus, as well as how those signatures were obtained by ALMA and JCMT. The results show that the shape of the signal, found at 266.94 GHz, probably came from the Venetian mesosphere – this is a very high altitude where sulfur dioxide exists but phosphine cannot be caused by the harsh conditions there, according to research. In fact, this environment is so extreme that phosphine will not last more than a few seconds.
According to the authors’ argument, the original researchers underestimated the amount of sulfur dioxide in the Venus atmosphere and instead gave a signal of 266.94 GHz to phosphine (both phosphine and sulfur dioxide absorb radio waves around this frequency). According to the researchers, this was due to an “unwanted side effect” known as spectral line dilution, the study co-author and NASA JPL scientist Alex Akins explained in a statement.
“They caused a low level of sulfur dioxide [an] Artificially a weak signal of alma mater, ”Linksowski added. “But our mingling suggests that line-thin ALMA data would still be specific or largely consistent with Venus sulfur dioxide, which could fully explain the observed JCMT signal.”
This new result could prove disastrous for Nature’s paper, and it will be interesting to hear how the authors react to this latest criticism. That said, some scientists believe the writing is already on the wall, or more accurately, the trash.
“Immediately after the publication of the original work, we and others have expressed strong doubts about his analysis,” wrote Ignas Snelan, a professor at Leiden University. “Now, I personally think this is the final nail in the coffin of the phosphin hypothesis. Of course, no one can ever prove that Venus is completely phosphin free, but at least there is no evidence to suggest that it is left now. I’m sure other people will keep searching though. “
Back in December, Snelan and colleagues challenged the Nature study, arguing that the method used by Greaves’ team resulted in “Sphorius” high signal-to-noise ratio for phosphine on Venus and “no statistical evidence” exists.
The apparent absence of phosphine on Venus, and therefore the absence of any signs of microbial life, is much less interesting than the opposite, but it does occur occasionally. Science makes no claims or promises about the curiosity of all things, and we, as defenders of the scientific method, must accept our emerging universe.
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