A team of scientists has detected the presence of phosphine on Venus, which is considered unsuitable for life, how this organic compound appeared on Venus, and whether this means the existence of life, which is confusing.
Of all the planets in the solar system, Venus is the closest to Earth. They have almost the same size, mass, and density, but Venus is much hotter than Earth.
The surface of Venus is like hell. Its surface layer is characterized by volcanic landforms, and the extremely dense atmosphere absorbs a lot of heat, and its temperature is as high as 900 degrees Celsius. Venus is clearly excluded from the planet that can bear life.
(Source: dashangu)
And it was in this environment that a team of astronomers made a surprising discovery: Traces of a gas in Venus's clouds are closely linked to life activity on Earth, but how that gas got there remains a mystery. The findings were published in the September 14, 2020 issue of the journal Nature Astronomy.
Using maxwell's telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array, scientists detected phosphine (PH3) gas present in Venus' atmosphere. Phosphine is considered an indicator gas for life on Earth, which means it is typically produced in biological activity. When looking for signs of life on other planets, scientists always rely on these life indicator gases to help them determine whether the planet is habitable. So, of all the near-Earth planets we know of, the presence of phosphine gas in Venus' atmosphere is a completely new problem.
Jane Greifos, editor-in-chief of Nature Astronomy and professor of astronomy at Cardiff University, said at a pre-Empt news conference on September 14 that the team had deliberately searched for phosphine gas in Venus' atmosphere to determine the habitability of Venus.
"With the support of faith, we finally detected traces of phosphine gas on Venus. This is truly a surprising and exciting discovery. It strongly supports the hypothesis that life exists on Venus, but at the same time, we need to be more cautious about follow-up research. ”
(Of the eight planets, the closest to the Sun is Mercury, followed by Venus.) Image source: wangluoliuxing)
This hellish world— Venus may be the second planet closest to the Sun, but it's the hottest. It slowly orbits the Sun in the opposite direction to many other planets, but its winds are faster than hurricanes, allowing Venus's acidic cloud to circle the planet every five days.
Venus' atmosphere is made up almost entirely of carbon dioxide, and it generates heat on the same principle as the greenhouse effect on Earth. This warns us that if we do not take appropriate measures to control greenhouse gas emissions, the horrific appearance on Venus will be the future of the planet.
The team of astronomers believes that Venus looked very different from what it looks like today, and that long ago there may have been water flowing on the surface of Venus. However, as the planet's temperature rises, not only does the liquid water evaporate, but its potential for life is erased.
Today, scientists still speculate that life as we know it can survive on Venus. Although the surface condition of Venus is not very friendly to life in any form, the temperature of its clouds is relatively acceptable to life. The problem is that the environment of acid clouds is also not ideal for the production of life. This may only be a trivial possibility that certain life forms exist in the clouds of Venus.
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The phosphine gas found in the Clouds of Venus is likely to have been broken down by the atmosphere. But according to the latest research by scientists, they found a cloud of Venus rich in 20 parts per billion of phosphine gas — mysteries that point to the secrets of the universe.
Sarah Siegel, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and co-author of the new study, said in a press conference: "We are not saying that we have found traces of life on the track, we are only illustrating that phosphine gas was found on the progress, and the production and existence of this gas is still a mystery." ”
The new study proposes a variety of hypotheses about the production of phosphine gas. But the astronaut team has yet to determine that ingredient is possible.
Thinking about it from another angle, some researchers believe that this may indicate an unknown chemical or geological action occurring on Venus. This may suggest that there is a new life form that astronomers and astrobiologists have not yet characterized, and this new life form can survive the extreme environment of Venus.
(Venus's atmosphere.) Image source: 163)
"There's some kind of completely unknown and bizarre chemical activity going on Venus," William Bain, an MIT researcher and co-author of the new study, told a news conference, "and there's also a possibility that this phosphine gas could be produced by some new life form." ”
In order to investigate this strange phenomenon and determine whether this can be used as evidence for the existence of new life forms, continuous investigation and research are needed. Researchers also hope that future Venus survey missions will further explore the composition of its atmosphere and assess the possibility of new life surviving on the hot planet.
"So far, we have only one example of a life form—life on Earth," Bain said, "and if we find life on Venus in the future, it will have far-reaching philosophical implications." ”
Related Information: Measuring trace gases in planetary atmospheres helps us explore chemical and ecological conditions that differ from those of Earth. Our nearest neighbor, Venus, has a mild but highly acidic cloud cover. The purpose of this article is to report the new discovery that phosphine (ph3) gas exists in the atmosphere of Venus in its oxidized form. The single-line millimeter band spectral detection (mass up to ~15σ) of the JCMT and Alma telescopes has no other credible identification information. We speculate that ph3 in the atmosphere is abundant at about 20 ppb.
After exhaustive studies of steady-state and photochemical pathways, the existence of ph3 cannot be explained, and there are currently no known abiotic production pathways in Venus's atmosphere, clouds, surface, and subsurface, or in lightning, volcanoes, or meteorite transmissions. Ph3 may come from unknown photochemistry or geochemistry, or similar to the production of ph3 by organisms on Earth, from some kind of life activity. We should look for other ph3 spectral features, and in situ cloud and surface sampling can examine the source of this gas.
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fy: Wu Qi
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