It concerns phosphine, an extremely rare molecule that is only produced on earth by microorganisms and the chemical industry. A ‘biomarker’ is called such a thing.
This does not immediately demonstrate the existence of life on Venus, but Dutch scientists are also enthusiastic about the discovery, which fits in with a well-known theory about what life on Venus might look like.
–
–
“It’s spectacular, I think it’s cool and I hope it will lead to more research. Because there are still far too many questions to say: there is life”, says Inge Loes ten Kate, astrobiologist at Utrecht University. Daphne Stam, planetary researcher at TU Delft: “If you find phosphine in reasonable quantities, it must be produced. If those were some kind of bacteria, that would be spectacular.”
Living in the clouds
Scientists have long speculated that small microorganisms, such as bacteria, could live in the clouds of Venus. And it had already been thought that they would then secrete phosphine, for example. And exactly that has now been demonstrated with two enormous telescopes.
After the moon, Venus is the closest celestial body as seen from Earth. It is not without reason that the planet can be seen so very clearly in the morning or evening twilight. The planet is about the same size as the Earth and due to its short distance – just like Mars – can be reached from Earth in a reasonably short time.
–
–
But even now no one claims to have found the hard evidence for life on Venus. There are too many questions for that: how can any micro-organisms survive in the clouds of Venus, which consist of almost pure sulfuric acid. On Earth, all microorganisms die at an acidity higher than 5 percent, the acidity in the clouds of Venus is 90 percent.
But if there is no life, what does that phosphine cause? In any case, the researchers have tested a few other possibilities and can rule them out. But they have by no means tested everything. “” All other processes, such as chemical processes, are more logical to explain the presence of phosphine than life, “Ten Kate therefore nuances. “In this case it still makes more sense that it is not life.”
From the shadow of Mars
To live or not: for planet researcher Stam, the gain is in any case that Venus is now crawling out of the shadow of Mars – our other closest neighbor in the universe – when it comes to the search for life.
–
–
“It is very nice about Venus that the planet resembles the Earth in many ways: about the same size, about the same inside, is closer to the sun but also not crazy much closer. It has even been thought for a long time that intelligent life would exist. until it was discovered in the 1960s that it was so incredibly hot there. “
‘Truly spectacular’
The air pressure on the surface itself is almost a hundred times higher than on Earth and because the atmosphere consists almost entirely of carbon dioxide, there is an extreme greenhouse effect. It is about 400 to 500 degrees. But in the clouds it is usually a pleasant thirty degrees, and there is also some water vapor.
“If we found life, it would be the first time there has been life outside of the Earth. If it were just bacteria, it would be really spectacular.”
–
–
