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“There is a possibility that we have detected living organisms in the clouds of Venus.” The announcement was just made by Jane Greaves, an astronomer at Cardiff University. The Royal Astronomical Society of the United Kingdom (Royal Astronomical Society) this afternoon confirmed the detection of phosphine molecules in the atmosphere of Venus, in quantities that researchers believe may be compatible with the existence of life. It’s not much, 20 parts per million, but the team believes that if micro-organisms were operating at 10% of Earth’s efficiency, this would be the result. Researchers have argued that this colorless and toxic gas, produced in oxygen-free environments, for example by microbes, as living things that breathe release methane, can be considered a biological signature of extraterrestrial life. To be confirmed, there is life outside of Earth. It is not a sign of intelligent life, but it is one of the strongest evidence of extraterrestrial life on the next planet. The result must be confirmed by other measurements. “The Earth also has life in the clouds,” recalled Sarah Seager, a member of the team. “It is transported from Earth, sometimes only for a few days. On Earth, clouds don’t last long, but on Venus they are permanent.”
Astronomer Carl Sagan was one of the first scientists to admit the hypothesis that there could be life in the clouds of Venus, which has gained momentum in recent years, although direct signs of life have never been detected. In 1967, Sagan published in Nature, co-authored with Harold Morowitz, the article “Life in the clouds of Venus”, where they admitted that although the conditions on the surface of Venus made the existence of life (as we know it) unlikely, the even the atmosphere cannot be told. “As noted a few years ago, water, carbon dioxide and sunlight, the prerequisites for photosynthesis, abound in the vicinity of clouds. Since then, there has been additional evidence that clouds are made up of crystals. of ice at the top, and it seems likely that there are drops of water in the low areas. There is also independent evidence of water vapor. The temperature at the top of the clouds is about 210 ° K (-63ºC =, and in the lower part of the clouds probably at least 260-280 ° K (-13.5 to 6.8 ° C). The atmospheric pressure at this temperature level is approximately 1 atm.7 The observed planetary albedo falls sharply on violet and ultraviolet , which explains the pale lemon yellow color of Venus. The decrease in albedo would not be expected for pure ice particles and therefore must be caused by some contaminant. Dust, ozone, C3O2 and other gases possibly explain these data, but which Whatever the explanation, the ultraviolet flux below the clouds will probably be low. If small amounts of minerals are transported from the surface to the clouds, it is not difficult to imagine an indigenous biology in the clouds of Venus, ”the authors wrote at the time.
Half a century later, the thesis seems to be confirmed by observations made through the James Clerk Maxwell radio telescope, located at the Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii, at the ALMA Observatory (Atacama Large Millimeter / submillimeter Array), in Chile. In 2019, American researchers had published a paper that suggested that Venus maintains volcanic activity, which could provide nutrients for eventual atmospheric life.
You can follow the presentation of the results on this page. Since then, the paper with the team’s findings has been published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
