Traces of a rare molecule known as phosphine have been found in Venus’s hellish, highly acidic atmosphere, astronomers announced Monday – providing a boring clue about the possibility of life. The phosphine molecules found on Earth are primarily the result of the action of microorganisms that thrive in human industry or in oxygen-free environments.
Researchers are not claiming that life has been found on another planet from the sun. But observations, in the upper layers of Venus’s atmosphere, suggest the possibility of at least microbial activity away from the surface of the planet’s habitat.
“We have found a rare gas called phosphine in the atmosphere of our neighboring planet Venus,” said Jane Greaves, a professor at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom and lead author in a report published in Nature Astronomy. “And the reason for our excitement is that the phosphine gas on Earth is made up of microorganisms that live in oxygen oxygen-free environments. And so there’s a possibility that we’ve found a kind of living organism in the clouds of Venus.”
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However, the team said more study is needed to support any such claim, it would be exceptional.
“To make this totally extraordinary claim that there can be life, we really have to rule over everything, and that’s why we say very carefully that we are not claiming to be life, but to claim to be something that is really unknown. Is and said MIT researcher William Bains, a member of the team.
“We’re not claiming to have found life on Venus,” agreed fellow MIT scientist Sara Caesar, who studied the exoplanet atmosphere.
“We are claiming to find the confidence of phosphine gas, the existence of which is a mystery,” he said. “Phosphine can be produced by some (non-biological) processes on Venus, but such a small amount is not enough to explain our observation. So we have left out this other fascinating, fascinating possibility: that maybe there is some kind of Venus Life in the clouds. “
Mars, which has planned microbial life in the past or even in the present, has long been considered the best candidate for the solar system beyond Earth, as indicated by the metamorphic background layer. NASA, the European Space Agency, China, India, Russia and the UAE are all following this. Exploration of the Red Planet In one form or another.
There are also plans for a flagship mission for NASA studies Jupiter’s moon. Scientists believe that one of the largest and most famous moons on the planet, Europa, Heated by tidal stresses and gravitational interactions with other moons, harbors salty, possibly b habitable seas beneath its icy crust. Other stable moons of the outer solar system, possible “water worlds,” are also candidates for the study.
But Venus suffers from a fugitive greenhouse effect in which thick clouds of sunlight, mostly scattered in the carbon dioxide atmosphere, produce surface temperatures that rise by about 900 degrees, which is hot enough to melt the lead.
However, in the atmosphere above the planet, the temperature is more hospitable. Despite the acidic nature of clouds, scientists have speculated that the existence of alien microorganisms is possible.
“Today the surface conditions there are really unfavorable, the temperature is enough to melt our landers,” Greaves said. “But it is believed that the very first surface in the history of Venus was very cold and wet and that life may have originated.
“There is a long-standing theory that some small forms of life could have moved upwards in the clouds. The conditions there are definitely not great, they are very acidic and very aerated, but on the other hand, if you talk about 0 to 0 kilometers. That pressure is similar to the Earth’s surface and the temperature is also nice, up to about 85 degrees Fahrenheit. So it is speculated that this is a living. Habitat today. “
Greaves’ team studied the atmosphere of Venus in Hawaii using the James Clark Maxwell Telescope and the Atacama Large millimeter / submillimeter array in Chile’s 45 radio telescope antennas and was surprised to see uncontrollable signs of phosphine. “It was a shock,” Greaves said.
The investigation gave time to make additional observations on the ALMA array and “in the end, we found that both observations saw the same thing, the absorption of phosphine gas at right wavelengths, where the atom is backlit by hot clouds below,” Greaves said in a statement. Is.
Only the amount of trace was observed, about 20 atoms per atom. But additional research has shown that natural sources of phosphine – volcanoes, electricity, blown into the mineral atmosphere, the action of sunlight – will actually produce only one in ten thousand.
The team may reject many non-biological ways to produce observational levels of phosphine, but that does not mean that life is the only explanation. MIT researcher Cara Sosa Silva said that Venus’s atmosphere is 90% sulfuric acid, which raises “many questions, such as how any organism can survive”.
“On Earth, some microorganisms can withstand as much as 1% acid in their atmosphere, but Venus clouds are made up almost entirely of acid,” he said.
Greaves’ team waits for additional telescope time to detect signs of other gases associated with biological activity and to determine the temperature of clouds where phosphine is present to gain additional insights. Ultimately, future visits by spacecraft are necessary for a complete solution to this question.
“There could always be something we overlooked,” Caesar said. “Ultimately, the only thing that will answer this question for us – whether there is life, whether there is no life – is actually going to Venus and measuring the signs of life and perhaps life in more detail.”
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