Signs of two gases in clouds of Venus could indicate life, scientists say

[idlewords]

We had a false alarm about Venusian phosphine (as the article mentions) a few years back. It would be very exciting to get these tentative detections confirmed.

There is a lot of microbial life on Earth living in clouds, almost all of it uncharacterized. Microbes have been found living high up into the stratosphere. At the very least, a search for life in the clouds of Venus would prompt us to learn more about this fascinating ecosystem here at home.

Review article on terrestrial life in the stratosphere for those interested: https://www.mdpi.com/1467-3045/38/1/8

[jvanderbot]

Does microbial life "live" there, or is it deposited there by other means?

[blue_dragon]

Makes me think the Soviets may have been correct in their obsession over Venus, if only by sheer luck.

[Animats]

Venus needs more attention. Mars is boring. Luna is boring. Venus might have some action.

And what about Europa?

[perihelions]

I think it is this paper? For the phosphine detections.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.05160 ("Venus, Phosphine and the Possibility of Life")

[AlexAndScripts]

Hopefully the Rocket Lab mission can confirm this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_Life_Finder

[josefritzishere]

This seems really optimistic.

[datameta]

“Our findings suggest that when the atmosphere is bathed in sunlight the phosphine is destroyed,” Clements said. “All that we can say is that phosphine is there. We don’t know what’s producing it. It may be chemistry that we don’t understand. Or possibly life.”

Either way, the discovery of the source or mechanism should prove highly illuminating to the study of exobiology. Pretty exciting, imo.

[digging]

Indeed,

“If they really confirm phosphine and ammonia robustly it raises the chances of biological origin. The natural next thing will be new people will look at it and give support or counter-arguments. The story will be resolved by more data.”

He added: “All of this is grounds for optimism. If they can demonstrate the signals are there, good for them.”

[pavel_lishin]

For sci-fi fans, Stephen Baxter wrote a very cool short story about possible Venetian life. It's part of this collection, and I don't particularly want to spoil anything about it: https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?332397

[mkl]

Venusian. Venetian is entirely different: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venetian

[dvh]

Hasn't phosphine been ruled out as sulphur dioxide? (Very similar peak in spectrum)

[windex]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB835915673862027500

[bbor]

Here’s an annoying question: how would one play the discovery of Venusian life into personal gain? I’m thinking “startup/invest in space” as a starting point, but surely there’s a more fun/rediculous way.

Let’s assume that these signals are indeed based in life, and that that life is mostly boring to laymen — some type of bacteria or lava tube denizen with minimal complexity, say

[shejdb688]

That's what these researchers are doing. There's vanishingly little possibility of life on Venus; they're fishing for research funds in leu of proposing kinetic mechanisms for the phosphine.

[XenophileJKO]

Found a new religion based on transpermia. Discovery of life on another planet would shake things up a little in the theology department.

[linkjuice4all]

Maybe get started by speculating in real estate and mineral (gas?) rights. Don’t forget some sort of platform for managing space start up company HR training video sharing across different planetary time codes. It couldn’t hurt to try to patent whatever atmospheric components are on Venus just to establish some claim to ownership. Oh and interstellar crypto - duh.

[yieldcrv]

Its the right question to ask: speculation breeds innovation and nothing else has motivated humans to bother

the merely curious get nowhere, the financially incentivized risk takers with asymmetric upside have a selective evolution of failures and successes towards a couple that find an edge

[tjpnz]

Weyland-Yutani found a way to exploit alien life and eventually got acquired by Walmart.

[PaulHoule]

B a bullshitter like https://astronomy.fas.harvard.edu/people/avi-loeb