If life exists on Venus, NASA first discovered it in 1978.
Life on Venus is still a long shot. But there is reason to take this idea seriously. On September 14, a team of scientists announced the bombshell in the journal Nature astronomy: Using a telescope, they would have detected phosphine, a toxic gas in the upper part of the planet’s thick atmosphere, a possible sign of alien microbial life. This discovery was a milestone in the search for life elsewhere in life Solar system, Which mostly focuses on some moons orbiting Mars and Jupiter and Saturn. Venus, meanwhile, hot and toxic, has long been considered inevitable for anything to survive. But now, archiving NASA data, a biochemist at Cal Poly Pomona, California, Rakesh Mogul and his colleagues have found a clue that Phosphin was taken by Pioneer 13 – an investigation that reached Venus in December 1978.
“When [Nature Astronomy paper] Coming out, I immediately thought about the mass spectra of heritage, ”Mogul told Live Science.
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He said the mogul and his colleagues were widely aware of the mission’s data. “So, for us, giving this data a second look was a natural next step. For example, after consulting with my co-authors, we identified the original scientific articles, and immediately began looking for phosphorus compounds.”
This search, published on arXiv Database Sept. 22 And Peer has not yet been reviewed, reports from Nature Astronomy do not tell researchers more – although it does contain the presence of phosphine (one is formed) Phosphorus Atom and three Hydrogen) More precisely, they said. The 1978 data came from the Larger Probe Neutral Mass Spectrometer (LNMS), one of many instruments that landed in Venus’s atmosphere as part of the Pioneer 13 mission.
Pioneer 13 dropped a large probe (LNMS) into the clouds of Venus; Suspended from parachute, collect probe data and beam it back Earth As he sank to his robotic death. (Even three small probes have come down from Pioneer 13 without a parachute.) LNMS Samples the atmosphere and executes those samples. Mass spectrometry, A standard laboratory technique used to identify unknown chemicals. When scientists first described the results of LNMS in the 1970s, they did not discuss it. PhosphorusBased compounds, such as phosphine, focus on other chemicals instead.
When the Mogul team re-examined the LNMS data of Venus’s lower and middle clouds (potentially habitable zone on the planet), they found clues that resembled large phosphine-like transactions. Scientists also found definite evidence for Atom Phosphorus in the atmosphere, probably from a heavy gas like ph phosphine.
LNMS Compounds such as phosphine were not created to hunt, and it would have taken a long time to separate the gas from other atoms with the same atom. But there is evidence that the Pioneer 13 sample contains some molecules in the gas that have the same mass as phosphine – to the extent that they match the levels described in the Nature Astronomy paper.
“I believe that for this evidence [trace chemicals that could be signatures of life] Inheritance data was given a kind of exemption because it was assumed that they did not exist in the environment, “Mogul said.” I think a lot of people are now turning the notion of Venus into a completely oxidizing atmosphere. “(A” fully oxidizing atmosphere “does not contain phosphine or most other chemicals seen as signs of life.)
Mogul and his colleagues also found signs of other chemicals not naturally occurring in substances such as chlorine, oxygen and hydrogen peroxide in Venus clouds.
“We believe this is an indication of chemistry ministries that have not yet been discovered, and / or that the chemistry ministers are adapting to life,” he wrote.
What is needed, they wrote, is the constant exploration of Venus.
“We need a more sustainable approach to research like Mars,” Mogul said.
He said NASA and European, Indian and Russian space agencies have plans to test Venus that could be helpful.
“However, given the past, present and future habitation of Venus, we will need long-term chemical and geological studies to understand any possible chemical sources. [anomalies] “In the clouds,” he said. “These orbital probes can be from balloon-suspended probes and / or heat-stationary lander probes in the clouds.”
The “warm-free” line is important, the habit of killing any robot on the planet that comes to its grazing hot surface.
Published on Original Living Science.
