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FP trendSeptember 16, 2020 9:26:52 am IST
The Royal Astronomical Society announced yesterday that a team of astronomers has discovered an unlikely molecule in considerable quantities in the atmospheric clouds of Venus. From what is known about phosphine on Earth, the molecule can be synthesized industrially or by bacteria that can grow in environments where oxygen is low or non-existent.
For decades, researchers have suspected that Venus could sustain microbial life in its atmosphere, in high clouds rather than on the planet’s scorching surface, where temperatures can soar as high as 450 degrees Celsius (700 degrees K). Still, these microbes were thought to be tough and resilient, particularly tolerant of the high sulfuric acid content in the environment of Venus.
Detection of phosphine molecules, which in turn are made up of hydrogen and phosphorous molecules, may point to this extraterrestrial ‘airborne’ life, the researchers have said.
However, the discovery does not require the presence of life on Venus, as the telescopic information or the configuration of the data could have affected the results. Therefore, a double and triple verification of the facts is necessary. As David Grinspoon of the Institute for Planetary Sciences put it, “When someone comes up with an extraordinary observation that hasn’t been made before, you wonder if they might have done something wrong.”
The study was published on September 14 in the journal Nature astronomy. Clara Sousa-Silva, a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who is also a co-author of the study, said: “I was immediately scared, of course. I assumed it was a mistake, but I really wanted it not to be a mistake. “
She was also the one who initially identified phosphine as a possible biological signature. This study was conducted after scientists discovered in January that the chemical can be used as potential bio-signature gas on anoxic exoplanets. Many researchers from the same team, including Clara Sousa-Silva, participated in the recent study to study atmospheres of other planets to detect the presence of the gas.
Venus. Image Credit: PLANET-C / JAXA
Phosphine is considered a dangerous gas as it has been used as a biological weapon in the past (World War I). Other than that, it is used as an agricultural fumigant. But it is also made naturally by some anaerobic microbes, which do not have access to oxygen. Otherwise, the gas is extremely difficult to produce and the clouds on Venus should be destroying the molecule before it can accumulate to a detected size.
So if the gas is actually present, there could be two possibilities: one that there are some alien life forms on Earth’s twin planet responsible for the chemical, or there is a way to develop the lifeless gas.
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