Scientists challenge latest discovery of biosignature on Venus

Last month’s bombshell study made the extraordinary claim of finding a type of atom on Venus associated with life. An independent re-evaluation of the methods used in the paper, searching for “no statistical evidence” for the biomarker, has reached a completely different conclusion.

We knew it would be a matter of time before the weight of other researchers In.

Life on Venus? Seriously? Is this fiery planet – with a surface temperature above 860 degrees F (450 degrees C) – really habitable?

It seemed impossible, Yet it was presented as a possible explanation for the provocative spectral signal recorded last September. A research team led by Cardiff University astronomer Jane Greaves Claimed To find Phosphine on Venus, a gas that, On earth, At least until then we can only be produced by microscopic organisms Learn. T.O To be clear, researchers Never Made a clear claim for life on Venus – they noted that it could be an explanation for the presence of phosphine. Quite suddenly, we found ourselves Imagine Bacteria-like organisms, with Farms filled with foul-smelling phosphine, floating in the cloud layers of the Venetian temperate zone.

According to new research led by Ignas Snelan of Leiden University, this vision may be pure fantasy. New to his team Paper, Still in pre-print form and requiring verification by peer reviewers, takes this claim as an exception, concluding that there is “no statistical evidence” for phosphine on Venus.

We were expecting this kind of thing. As Carl Sagan used to say, “Extraordinary evidence is required for an extraordinary claim.” According to Dutch researchers, the evidence presented in Greaves’ paper is not unusual.It’s just utterly unbelievable.

Greaves paper, Published Nature Astronomy, using data collected by Atacama Large Millimeter / Submillimeter Array (ALMA) based in Northern Chile. Snelan and his colleagues took a look at the same data, given to them by the original research team (authors). Really tBeat the Graves team in the acceptance section, as scientists are respected That way). When re-analyzing the possible phosphine signal, they applied the same methodological approach that appeared with a single spectrographic line at 267 GHz. Try as you can, the Dutch team could not verify the results of previous reports Nature astronomy paper.

Writing in their study, Snelan and his co-authors stated that the procedure used by the Greaves team for the study of spectral data was “inappropriate”, resulting in a “spurlus” high signal-to-noise ratio.

Indeed, astronomers constantly glare at their data with signal-to-noise issues, in which they must annoy the Wanted from unwanted people. The space is filled with all sorts of external material that can disturb spectrometers, including floating photons and electrical explosions. Astronomical data can also be clouded by more local sources such as microwave ovens (yes, Seriously). Here, Greaves’ team claimed to have better data than bad (i.e. a higher signal-to-noise ratio). The Snelan team disagrees. Instead, the signal-to-noise ratio of the proposed phosphine signal is actually quite low, they argue, and in fact, it is too low to be meaningful.

“In astronomy, such low features [signal-to-noise ratio] The authors write that it is generally not considered statistically significant, “and the authors write that such features seen at such a low level have” no statistical meaning “because they are” unreliable to any link to a false positive probability. ” “

So basically, Snelan and his teammates are claiming that Greaves’ team made some mistakes –Measurements and miscalculations, which do not lead to a wrong result. What’s more, their analysis shows that at least a handful of features can be obtained from their method, except that they provide no solid basis for predicting the presence of the “Greaves study”, they have no choice. [phosphine] In the Venus atmosphere. ”

Uch ch.

Well, that’s science for you. However, this is a good thing: S.Scientific progress depends on scientists being able to duplicate and Check out someone else’s work (or in this case, no – but it should still be considered progress, It moves the conversation forward).

The story undoubtedly did not end, as the original team, and probably. Other scientists may have one or two things to say about the claims made in the Ceylon paper. And indeed, new The paper itself has yet to go through a peer review, which means these are new claims Now others must also be tested.