Named after a goddess of beauty, Venus is our closest neighbor in the solar system and thanks to reflected sunlight, one of the brightest points of light in the night sky.
Because the surface of that planet is very hot and considered inhospitable to life, it has not been the focus of our unending search for other life in the universe. Indeed, attempts to explore the planet have not been very fruitful, as even metals melt upon arrival.
However, at one ancient time, Venus may have been more teeming with life than Earth was at that time. Hundreds of millions of years ago, Venus had oceans. Perhaps it may even today have some life remaining. Astronomers recently found a lot of phosphine within the clouds around Venus. Some rule out other sources of the biomolecule and conclude, that it must be actively produced by microorganism(s) within the clouds. Indeed, since sunlight breaks down phosphine, there must be some current active source. Of course, some others believe otherwise. Nonetheless, life may be much closer, than most predicted. Venus may once again become an area of interest.
Today in The New York Times;
In response to:
Life on Venus? Astronomers See a Signal in Its Clouds
The detection of a gas in the planet’s atmosphere could turn scientists’ gaze to a planet long overlooked in the search for extraterrestrial life.
By Shannon Stirone, Kenneth Chang and Dennis Overbye
Sept. 14, 2020 Updated 11:19 a.m. ET
High in the toxic atmosphere of the planet Venus, astronomers on Earth have discovered signs of what might be life.
If the discovery is confirmed by additional telescope observations and future space missions, it could turn the gaze of scientists toward one of the brightest objects in the night sky. Venus, named after the Roman goddess of beauty, roasts at temperatures of hundreds of degrees and is cloaked by clouds that contain droplets of corrosive sulfuric acid. Few have focused on the rocky planet as a habitat for something living.
Instead, for decades, scientists have sought signs of life elsewhere, usually peering outward to Mars and more recently at Europa, Enceladus and other icy moons of the giant planets.
The astronomers, who reported the finding on Monday in a pair of papers, have not collected specimens of Venusian microbes, nor have they snapped any pictures of them. But with powerful telescopes, they have detected a chemical — phosphine — in the thick Venus atmosphere. After much analysis, the scientists assert that something now alive is the only explanation for the chemical’s source.
Some researchers question this hypothesis, and they suggest instead that the gas could result from unexplained atmospheric or geologic processes on a planet that remains mysterious. But the finding will also encourage some planetary scientists to ask whether humanity has overlooked a planet that may have once been more Earthlike than any other world in our solar system.
“This is an astonishing and ‘out of the blue’ finding,” said Sara Seager, a planetary scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an author of the papers (one published in Nature Astronomy and another submitted to the journal Astrobiology). “It will definitely fuel more research into the possibilities for life in Venus’s atmosphere.”
“We know that it is an extraordinary discovery,” said Clara Sousa-Silva, a molecular astrophysicist at Harvard University whose research has focused on phosphine, and another of the authors. “We may not know just how extraordinary without going back to Venus.”.....
(continued in my first comment below)