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Astronomers from Europe and the United States have detected a fetid gas that they attribute to microbes suspended in the clouds of Venus, reports El País.
Scientists say they have found possible signs of life on Venus, the closest planet to Earth.
The discovery is still preliminary and needs confirmation, but the study authors say that one of the most plausible explanations for their observations is that there is life on this planet.
Many of the independent experts consulted by the Spanish newspaper said that the evidence is not sufficient to draw this conclusion, writes News.ro.
The pressure on Venus is equivalent to that found on Earth at 1,600 meters below sea level, the surface of the planet is rocky and the size is almost identical to that of Earth.
But the atmosphere here is made up of toxic gases that generate global warming, more than 400 degrees on the surface.
Profimedia
At 50 kilometers above the surface, the temperature is just over 20 degrees and the pressure is similar to that of Earth.
One of the first to say that life was possible in the clouds of this planet was the researcher Carl Sagan, who in 1967 published a study in the journal Nature in which he speculated that there would be beings the size of ping-pong balls. , a kind of jellyfish that floats in the atmosphere, adapted to live in toxic gases. He also repeated throughout his life: “Extraordinary statements require extraordinary evidence.”
More than half a century later, a team of astronomers from the United States and Europe announced that they had detected phosphine, a foul and toxic derivative of phosphorus, in the planet’s atmosphere. It has been used as a weapon, insecticide, and is a residue in methamphetamine production.
The largest planets in the solar system, Jupiter and Saturn, are known to generate phosphine, which also exists on Earth, where the main source is associated with microbes that live in oxygen-free environments, including the bottom of some lakes and in the intestines of animals.
In a study published Monday in Nature Astronomy, researchers report that on Venus, the amount of phosphine is 10,000 times greater than what could be produced by non-biological methods. The authors of the article simulated processes that can produce phosphine.
Jane Greaves’ team from Cardiff University first identified phosphine on Venus using the James Clerk Maxwell telescope in Hawaii, then confirmed its presence using the Atacama Large Millimeter / Submillimeter Array in Chile.
“Detection of PH3 (symbol for phosphine, no) is not solid evidence of life, but rather abnormal chemistry that we cannot explain,” the study authors said.
The answer to the questions posed by the analysis could be given by sending a probe to specifically investigate the atmosphere of Venus.
