Astronomers have discovered a rare element - phosphine - in the clouds of the planet Venus. On Earth, this gas is only produced in industry or it is emitted by bacteria living in an oxygen-limited environment
[Translation by Dr. Nachmani Moshe]
Astronomers have discovered a rare element - phosphine - in the clouds of the planet Venus. On Earth, this gas is only produced in industry or it is emitted by bacteria living in an oxygen-limited environment
An international team of astronomers announced a long time ago the discovery of a rare element - phosphine - in the clouds of the planet Venus. On Earth, this gas is only produced in industry or it is emitted by bacteria living in an oxygen-limited environment. Astronomers have speculated for decades that the high clouds above the planet Venus could provide a home for bacteria. "When we saw the first hints of the presence of phosphine in the spectrum of Venus, it was a shock!" said research team leader Jane Greaves of Cardiff University in the UK, the first team to ever observe the phosphine spectrum in space. Verification of their discovery required the use of forty-five antennas as part of an advanced telescope located in Chile. The telescope observed Venus at a wavelength of only about one millimeter, a wavelength much longer than the eye can observe - a wavelength that only a high-altitude telescope can do effectively.
The international team, which includes researchers from Great Britain, the United States and Japan, estimates that phosphine exists in the clouds of Venus at a low concentration, only about twenty parts per billion parts. Following these observations, the researchers ran calculations to examine whether such amounts could have resulted from natural non-biological processes occurring on Some of the solutions to this research question include the sun's rays, minerals emitted from the surface of the star, volcanoes, or Lightning, however, none of these factors can create such an amount. From the calculations it was found that these non-biological sources could create at most ten thousandths of the amount observed by the telescope.
In order to create the amount of phosphine (composed of hydrogen and phosphorus) observed on the surface of Venus, extraterrestrial organisms would have had to operate at only one-tenth of their production capacity, according to the researchers. Bacteria on Earth are known to be capable of creating phosphine: they feed on the yeast found in minerals in the soil, or in biological material, add hydrogen and eventually emit phosphine. Any organism found on Venus will likely be very different from its counterpart on Earth, but it too may be a source of phosphine in the atmosphere.
Although the discovery of phosphine in the clouds of Venus came as a surprise, the researchers are confident of their discovery. "Fortunately for us, the conditions at the observatory were good for observing when Venus was still at an appropriate angle to the Earth. At the end of a complex processing process, the researchers realized that their observations were accurate - a weak absorption of the wavelength corresponding to the phosphine gas, with the foals illuminated in the background The warmer clouds below," says the lead researcher. The research findings were published on September 14, 2020 in the scientific journal Nature Astronomy.
Another scientist on the research team had previously studied the potential of phosphine gas as a "biological signature" of living creatures that exist in an oxygen-absent or limited environment on planets around other stars, since normal chemistry produces only tiny amounts of oxygen there. The researcher explains: "Finding phosphine on Venus was an unexpected bonus! The discovery raises many questions, such as how any organism can exist in the conditions of Venus. On Earth there are bacteria that are able to survive in environments containing five percent acid - but the clouds of Venus are almost entirely made of from acid". The research team believes that its discovery is significant in light of the fact that the researchers can rule out many alternative ways of producing phosphine, but they acknowledge that verifying the possibility of 'life' still requires much further research. Although the high clouds of Venus have temperatures of up to thirty degrees Celsius, they are extremely acidic - close to ninety percent sulfuric acid - a serious challenge to the ability of any species of bacteria to survive.
If it is proven that the source is biological - it will be a revolution in astrobiology
Explains one of the researchers: "The possibility of phosphine production in Venus from a non-biological source is unlikely due to our existing insights into phosphine chemistry in the atmospheres of rocky stars. The verification of the existence of life in the atmosphere of Venus will be a significant breakthrough in the field of astrobiology; therefore, it is necessary to promote the fascinating findings these with the help of theoretical and observational experiments in order to disprove the possibility that phosphine on rocky stars may to come from a chemical source different from that on Earth." Further observations of Venus and rocky stars outside our solar system may help gather clues as to how phosphine can be produced in them and contribute to the search for signs of extraterrestrial life.
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