CNN Indonesia
Sunday, 27 Aug 2023 07:54 WIB
NASA students believe there are aliens on the Planet Venus. (via REUTERS/NASA)
Jakarta, CNNIndonesia —
Despite the conditions Venus so hot up to 475 degrees Celsius with a toxic acidic atmosphere that could kill humans outright, scientists at the US Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) believe life outside Earth there is this planet.
“I believe we will find life on other planets. I think in our Solar System we are pretty close to life, but then again we are not 100 per cent [yakin],” said Michelle Thaller, research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), quoted from Mirror.
“On Mars, we’ll see [unsur] chemistry that exists on Earth that if it were here we would say it was produced by life,” he said, “But the question is, how well do we understand Mars and are we fooled by something?”
Thaller thinks life could be closer to Earth than Mars.
“We see possible signs of life in the atmosphere of Venus. Perhaps under the ice in the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn. The Solar System may be cooperating with simple life, microbial life.”
“We just need to achieve 100 percent certainty to say we either found it or we haven’t.”
Then, why Venus? “I never expected Venus. Venus is now where we see something in the atmosphere that looks like something produced by bacteria.”
This woman who works as Assistant Director of Science for Communications at GSFC believes humans will find another life and it’s only a matter of time.
Located at 108 million km from the Sun, according to NASA data, Venus is the hottest planet in our Solar System, with temperatures that can even melt lead; its surface has an average temperature of 475 degrees C.
The atmosphere is composed of sulfuric acid and carbon dioxide. The materials prevent the planet’s heat from being thrown into space and rendering it uninhabitable for ‘intelligent’ life.
However, scientists have long debated whether Venus’ clouds could harbor microbes that could survive on sulfur, methane and iron.
Need water
Many theorize that photosynthesis is possible on the planet’s surface because Venus receives enough solar energy to penetrate its thick clouds.
Dominic Papineau, an astrobiologist at University College of London, says Thaller’s theory is hard to hypothesize realistically.
“In order for the chemical reactions associated with life to take place, water in liquid form is needed,” he said.
“Therefore, to find extraterrestrial life, we need to find liquid water, and to find extraterrestrial fossils we need to look for sedimentary rocks that were associated with liquid water in the past,” he explained.
Papineau underlined about the extreme conditions on the surface of Venus for life.
“This makes life on Venus today difficult to hypothesize realistically, because the surface is too hot, even though Venus may have had liquid water in the past.”
“A possible problem with the possible existence of a fossil record on Venus is the widespread volcanism that appears to have covered most of the surface of Venus in the last few hundred million years,” he explained.
Despite the disagreements, Papineau and Thaller agree that our Solar System’s icy moons (natural satellites of planets) could also be potential sites of microbial life.
“It is very likely that we will find extraterrestrial life and/or fossils on Mars and in the icy moons of the outer solar system.”
“This is because liquid water is present on these planets, including in the ice at the south pole of Mars. Mars and icy moons also have geological records that may preserve fossils,” said Papineau.
(team/ar)
2023-08-27 00:54:11
#NASA #scientists #aliens #live #planet #Venus
