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New Discovery Suggests Venus Might Host Life! Ready To Buy A House on Venus?
Jan 18, 2021
One of the biggest news stories of 2020 was the apparent sighting of phosphine in Venus’s atmosphere.
On Earth, phosphine is associated with life, with microbes living in the guts of animals like penguins, or in oxygen-poor environments such as swamps.
For sure, you can make it industrially, but there are no factories on Venus. So this was interpreted as a sign that life may be floating in the Venusian clouds.
The phosphine was observed at mid-latitudes on the planet at roughly 50-60km in altitude. The concentration is small - making up only 10-20 parts in every billion atmospheric molecules - but in this context, that's a lot.
This was observed by the team of Prof Jane Greaves, from Cardiff University, UK.
In the past, Venus is not at the top of the list when thinking of life elsewhere in our Solar System, because of its extreme condition.
Given everything we know about Venus and the conditions that exist there, no-one has yet been able to describe an abiotic pathway to phosphine, not in the quantities that have been detected. This means a life source deserves consideration.
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