Chemistry is a funny thing, and so is the discovery of life in the outside world. Those are, in fact, two great things that happen great together. The only scenario for the search for life on other worlds is the discovery of chemical biosignatures – the presence of chemicals, or fluctuations in the levels of chemicals, or both, which have no explanation other than the metabolic processes of alien life. The problem is that different chemicals can be produced by different processes, some of them have metabolic pathways in living organisms, but some of them are not, and which is not easy to say (Mars, for example, has seasonal fluctuations in the amount of methane in its atmosphere, but no There is no definite evidence, at this time, that it is the cause of the microbial life). However, researchers have only recently found evidence of a chemical compound called phosphine in Venus’s atmosphere. Venus is the most hospitable disease of the planets – the surface temperature is hot enough to melt lead; 90 times the surface atmospheric pressure on the Earth’s surface, and it rains sulfuric acid (the Venetian atmosphere is almost pure carbon dioxide, and its greenhouse effects have turned Venus into today’s hell-world). But things are more moderate in the upper layers of the clouds that stripped the atmosphere on Friday, and it’s possible – just possible – that life has found phosphine as its signature. Phosphine is produced almost entirely on Earth by anaerobic microorganisms. If there is life floating on the obscure surface of Venus, the definitive proof is the end of the years, but the presence of phosphine may be the first glimpse of its existence.
– Jack Forster, Editor-in-Chief
