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Life on Venus

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  • Life on Venus

    This is obviously extremely tentative but let's see if this pans out

    Source: Maunakea telescope finds hints of life on Venus


    What may be the first hints of life on Venus have been discovered by an international team of astronomers using observations from the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) on Maunakea. The team detected the gas phosphine in Venus’ upper clouds; on Earth phosphine is excreted by microbes that thrive in oxygen-free environments. The discovery was published in Nature Astronomy.

    For decades, astronomers have speculated that the high clouds on Venus could offer a home for microbes—microscopic organisms floating free of the planet’s scorching surface, with access to water and sunlight, but needing to tolerate very high acidity. Now that phosphine has been detected it could point to extra-terrestrial ‘aerial’ life. The team reconfirmed the JCMT observations using 45 telescopes of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile. Both facilities observed Venus at a wavelength of about 1 millimeter, which is a very short-wavelength radio emission that can be detected only with telescopes at high altitudes, such as the summit area of Maunakea.

    Astronomers ran calculations to see if phosphine could come from natural processes on Venus such as sunlight, volcanoes or lightning. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology led the work on assessing those sources but found none could generate the observed quantity discovered by the team.

    University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo alumna E’Lisa Lee studied astronomy at the Hawaiʻi Island campus. She helped carry out the observations for the study while working as a JCMT telescope operator.

    “An observed biochemical process occurring on anything other than Earth has the greatest and most profound implications for our understanding of life on Earth, and life as a concept,” Lee explained. “Being able to participate in the scientific process…was an incredible and humbling experience. It is my sincerest hope that further observations will allow for greater exploration of Venusian clouds and everything beyond.”

    According to the team of astronomers, more observations need to be conducted to monitor gas levels they observed. If future studies continue to align with their discovery, researchers hope a spacecraft can be sent to Venus to take a sample of its atmosphere.



    Source

    © Copyright Original Source



    The entire actual paper published in Nature Astronomy can be read HERE with this being the paper's abstract:

    Source: Phosphine gas in the cloud decks of Venus


    Measurements of trace gases in planetary atmospheres help us explore chemical conditions different to those on Earth. Our nearest neighbour, Venus, has cloud decks that are temperate but hyperacidic. Here we report the apparent presence of phosphine (PH3) gas in Venus’s atmosphere, where any phosphorus should be in oxidized forms. Single-line millimetre-waveband spectral detections (quality up to ~15σ) from the JCMT and ALMA telescopes have no other plausible identification. Atmospheric PH3 at ~20 ppb abundance is inferred. The presence of PH3 is unexplained after exhaustive study of steady-state chemistry and photochemical pathways, with no currently known abiotic production routes in Venus’s atmosphere, clouds, surface and subsurface, or from lightning, volcanic or meteoritic delivery. PH3 could originate from unknown photochemistry or geochemistry, or, by analogy with biological production of PH3 on Earth, from the presence of life. Other PH3 spectral features should be sought, while in situ cloud and surface sampling could examine sources of this gas.

    © Copyright Original Source


    I'm always still in trouble again

    "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
    "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
    "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

  • #2
    I hope it's sexy women like in all those 50s sci-fi movies.


    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
      This is obviously extremely tentative but let's see if this pans out
      Yeah, there's two places this could fall down. The first is that detection of the signature of phosphine required some heavy signal processing of the radiotelescope data. My sense is that this is probably ok, given that they used two different telescopes developed performed two independent signal processing pipelines. But it's also way outside my area of expertise, so i'll wait to give all the experts time to pick it apart.

      The second area is the chemistry. They can't come up with a plausible route to produce enough phosphine via known chemical pathways to overcome Venus' environment, which should destroy it within a few thousand years. But Venus is a REALLY unfamiliar environment - heavily volcanic, dry, covered in supercritical CO2. I'm not confident that we can easily exhaust all the possible chemistry pathways that might occur there.

      Neat and unexpected stuff, though, regardless of how it turns out.
      "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from trolling."

      Comment


      • #4
        At least on Venus they don't have to worry about greenhouse gases or carbon footprints.
        When I Survey....

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Sparko View Post
          I hope it's sexy women like in all those 50s sci-fi movies.






          CP and I gots hold of the uncut version which was called "Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Wimmenfolk" smiley dirtyflirt.gif

          I'm always still in trouble again

          "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
          "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
          "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Faber View Post
            At least on Venus they don't have to worry about greenhouse gases or carbon footprints.
            . . . covered in supercritical CO2. The aliens were there first.
            Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
            Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
            But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

            go with the flow the river knows . . .

            Frank

            I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
              This is obviously extremely tentative but let's see if this pans out

              Source: Maunakea telescope finds hints of life on Venus


              What may be the first hints of life on Venus have been discovered by an international team of astronomers using observations from the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) on Maunakea. The team detected the gas phosphine in Venus’ upper clouds; on Earth phosphine is excreted by microbes that thrive in oxygen-free environments. The discovery was published in Nature Astronomy.

              For decades, astronomers have speculated that the high clouds on Venus could offer a home for microbes—microscopic organisms floating free of the planet’s scorching surface, with access to water and sunlight, but needing to tolerate very high acidity. Now that phosphine has been detected it could point to extra-terrestrial ‘aerial’ life. The team reconfirmed the JCMT observations using 45 telescopes of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile. Both facilities observed Venus at a wavelength of about 1 millimeter, which is a very short-wavelength radio emission that can be detected only with telescopes at high altitudes, such as the summit area of Maunakea.

              Astronomers ran calculations to see if phosphine could come from natural processes on Venus such as sunlight, volcanoes or lightning. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology led the work on assessing those sources but found none could generate the observed quantity discovered by the team.

              University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo alumna E’Lisa Lee studied astronomy at the Hawaiʻi Island campus. She helped carry out the observations for the study while working as a JCMT telescope operator.

              “An observed biochemical process occurring on anything other than Earth has the greatest and most profound implications for our understanding of life on Earth, and life as a concept,” Lee explained. “Being able to participate in the scientific process…was an incredible and humbling experience. It is my sincerest hope that further observations will allow for greater exploration of Venusian clouds and everything beyond.”

              According to the team of astronomers, more observations need to be conducted to monitor gas levels they observed. If future studies continue to align with their discovery, researchers hope a spacecraft can be sent to Venus to take a sample of its atmosphere.



              Source

              © Copyright Original Source



              The entire actual paper published in Nature Astronomy can be read HERE with this being the paper's abstract:

              Source: Phosphine gas in the cloud decks of Venus


              Measurements of trace gases in planetary atmospheres help us explore chemical conditions different to those on Earth. Our nearest neighbour, Venus, has cloud decks that are temperate but hyperacidic. Here we report the apparent presence of phosphine (PH3) gas in Venus’s atmosphere, where any phosphorus should be in oxidized forms. Single-line millimetre-waveband spectral detections (quality up to ~15σ) from the JCMT and ALMA telescopes have no other plausible identification. Atmospheric PH3 at ~20 ppb abundance is inferred. The presence of PH3 is unexplained after exhaustive study of steady-state chemistry and photochemical pathways, with no currently known abiotic production routes in Venus’s atmosphere, clouds, surface and subsurface, or from lightning, volcanic or meteoritic delivery. PH3 could originate from unknown photochemistry or geochemistry, or, by analogy with biological production of PH3 on Earth, from the presence of life. Other PH3 spectral features should be sought, while in situ cloud and surface sampling could examine sources of this gas.

              © Copyright Original Source

              Here are a few more articles in the popular press concerning this:


              As the last one puts it...

              But an international team of scientists has just made a detection that might - just might - be a biosignature. Conversely, it might be the sign of an abiotic chemical process that we don't yet know of. Or there might be some poorly understood geological process occurring on Venus. Either way, this discovery is the harbinger of one heck of a learning experience.

              I'm always still in trouble again

              "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
              "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
              "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

              Comment


              • #8
                Perelandra.
                sigpic

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                  I hope it's sexy women like in all those 50s sci-fi movies.

                  They left and left the management of Venus to the men.
                  Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                  Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                  But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                  go with the flow the river knows . . .

                  Frank

                  I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    All the Venus jokes and beauty contests aside. I do believe that subsurface life causing venting organic gases is a possibility in Venus, in part because in the ancient past life may have begun on Venus when it was more habitable. Saturn's moon Enceladus is uninhabitable on the service, but vents organic gases indicating the possible subsurface life, and is possible that Jupiter's Europa oceans may harbor life at the bottom of the water covered moon.
                    Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                    Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                    But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                    go with the flow the river knows . . .

                    Frank

                    I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by TheWall View Post
                      Perelandra.
                      If it was Perelandra then it looks like the evil there won.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                        This is obviously extremely tentative but let's see if this pans out

                        Source: Maunakea telescope finds hints of life on Venus


                        What may be the first hints of life on Venus have been discovered by an international team of astronomers using observations from the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) on Maunakea. The team detected the gas phosphine in Venus upper clouds; on Earth phosphine is excreted by microbes that thrive in oxygen-free environments. The discovery was published in Nature Astronomy.

                        For decades, astronomers have speculated that the high clouds on Venus could offer a home for microbesmicroscopic organisms floating free of the planets scorching surface, with access to water and sunlight, but needing to tolerate very high acidity. Now that phosphine has been detected it could point to extra-terrestrial aerial life. The team reconfirmed the JCMT observations using 45 telescopes of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile. Both facilities observed Venus at a wavelength of about 1 millimeter, which is a very short-wavelength radio emission that can be detected only with telescopes at high altitudes, such as the summit area of Maunakea.

                        Astronomers ran calculations to see if phosphine could come from natural processes on Venus such as sunlight, volcanoes or lightning. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology led the work on assessing those sources but found none could generate the observed quantity discovered by the team.

                        University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo alumna ELisa Lee studied astronomy at the Hawaiʻi Island campus. She helped carry out the observations for the study while working as a JCMT telescope operator.

                        An observed biochemical process occurring on anything other than Earth has the greatest and most profound implications for our understanding of life on Earth, and life as a concept, Lee explained. Being able to participate in the scientific processwas an incredible and humbling experience. It is my sincerest hope that further observations will allow for greater exploration of Venusian clouds and everything beyond.

                        According to the team of astronomers, more observations need to be conducted to monitor gas levels they observed. If future studies continue to align with their discovery, researchers hope a spacecraft can be sent to Venus to take a sample of its atmosphere.



                        Source

                        © Copyright Original Source



                        The entire actual paper published in Nature Astronomy can be read HERE with this being the paper's abstract:

                        Source: Phosphine gas in the cloud decks of Venus


                        Measurements of trace gases in planetary atmospheres help us explore chemical conditions different to those on Earth. Our nearest neighbour, Venus, has cloud decks that are temperate but hyperacidic. Here we report the apparent presence of phosphine (PH3) gas in Venuss atmosphere, where any phosphorus should be in oxidized forms. Single-line millimetre-waveband spectral detections (quality up to ~15σ) from the JCMT and ALMA telescopes have no other plausible identification. Atmospheric PH3 at ~20 ppb abundance is inferred. The presence of PH3 is unexplained after exhaustive study of steady-state chemistry and photochemical pathways, with no currently known abiotic production routes in Venuss atmosphere, clouds, surface and subsurface, or from lightning, volcanic or meteoritic delivery. PH3 could originate from unknown photochemistry or geochemistry, or, by analogy with biological production of PH3 on Earth, from the presence of life. Other PH3 spectral features should be sought, while in situ cloud and surface sampling could examine sources of this gas.

                        © Copyright Original Source

                        UPDATE: Three studies not able to find the significant levels of phosphine in the atmosphere that was initially reported


                        Source: Promising sign of life on Venus might not exist after all


                        The detection of phosphine gas in the clouds of Venus—a possible sign of life—might be due to a fluke in data processing, new analyses suggest.



                        ASTRONOMERS RECENTLY FOUND a tantalizing hint that life could be wafting through the clouds shrouding Venus. But it seems the hunt for extraterrestrial life is far from over, as new research is already calling that discovery into question.

                        The detection of phosphine gas in Venus’s atmosphere, announced last month, ignited a firestorm of speculation about whether the gas could be produced by alien microbes on the planet, where NASA is currently considering sending a spacecraft. However, three independent studies now have failed to find evidence of phosphine in the Venusian atmosphere.

                        One of the groups used archival observations to search for signs of the gas in the planet’s clouds, and didn’t find it.

                        “They’re saying they don’t see the phosphine. That’s really problematic,” says Conor Nixon, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center who did not participate in the analysis. The study has been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

                        Two other groups reprocessed the discovery team’s original data and also couldn’t find evidence for phosphine.

                        But detecting a faint signal from a specific molecule on another planet is a complex process, and the original study authors are not surprised that other scientists are taking a closer look at their work.

                        “This is normal. This is what science looks like. If this was data that you could have just looked at with the naked eye and seen phosphine, it would have been discovered a long time ago,” says Clara Sousa-Silva of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, one of the authors. “I’m so relieved that people are finally looking at this data and it’s not just us.”



                        Source

                        © Copyright Original Source



                        I'm always still in trouble again

                        "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                        "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                        "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Of course there is no life on Venus - they all destroyed themselves in a nuclear war (as we know thanks to this fine documentary ):

                          first-spaceship-on-venus.jpg
                          Attached Files

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Celebrian View Post
                            Of course there is no life on Venus - they all destroyed themselves in a nuclear war (as we know thanks to this fine documentary ):

                            first-spaceship-on-venus.jpg
                            There were survivors as we can see in the 1995 documentary "Vampire Vixens From Venus"!




                            I'm always still in trouble again

                            "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                            "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                            "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Back to real world of science leaving the grade D sci-fi movies with girls stamped from molds made by Goodyear. Aliens in thongs and silicon breasts?

                              Source: https://www.universetoday.com/148486/astronomers-challenge-recent-findings-about-venus-no-statistically-significant-detection-of-phosphine/



                              Astronomers Challenge Recent Findings About Venus. “No Statistically Significant Detection of Phosphine”


                              In September, a team of scientists reported finding phosphine in the upper atmosphere of Venus. Phosphine can be a biomarker and is here on Earth. But it’s also present on Jupiter, where it’s produced abiotically. The discovery led to conjecture about what kind of life might survive in Venus’ atmosphere, continually producing the easily-degraded phosphine.

                              The authors of that study were circumspect about their own results, saying that they hope someone can determine a source for the phosphine, other than life.

                              Now a new study says that the original phosphine detection is not statistically significant.



                              The new study is a re-production and re-evaluation of the original ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array) data that the initial detection of phosphine was based on. It comes from a team of five researchers from the Netherlands.

                              The title of the study is “Re-analysis of the 267-GHz ALMA observations of Venus: No statistically significant detection of phosphine.” The lead author is Ignas Snellen, Professor of Astronomy at Leiden University in the Netherlands. The paper has not been peer-reviewed yet and is available on the pre-press site arxiv.org.

                              After the initial discovery of phosphine at Venus, reported here at Universe Today, other scientists took notice. Other studies followed up on that work. One attempted to calculate how much life would be needed to produce the detected phosphine. Another suggested that life isn’t necessary, and volcanoes could produce it.

                              © Copyright Original Source


                              Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                              Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                              But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                              go with the flow the river knows . . .

                              Frank

                              I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                              Comment

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