An international research team writes in a new study that phosphine has been found in the Venusian atmosphere.
The discovery is described as "groundbreaking" because it is a substance that is caused by bacteria on earth.
Phosphine is a very toxic and flammable gas.
- If it really is life, it is an incredibly great discovery.
But it has not been proven yet, says astrobiologist Alexis Brandeker at Stockholm University.
It is known that bacteria on earth produce phosphine.
But of course they have a much more favorable habitat than any bacteria on Venus.
Poor living conditions
Venus is completely covered by thick clouds, mostly consisting of carbon dioxide.
The rain consists of sulfuric acid.
It is a terribly high air pressure, as high as at a depth of nearly a thousand meters in the earth's ocean.
And on the surface it is up to 470 degrees hot, enough to melt lead.
An astronaut who stepped out on the surface would simultaneously be boiled by the heat, crushed by the air pressure and burned by concentrated battery acid in the rain.
And the remains would be blown away in winds of 100 meters per second.
Venus has not previously been a hot candidate to host life.
The phosphine now found is considered by scientists to be a possible but unsafe marker for the existence of life on Venus.
They made calculations to try to find other natural sources, but have rejected theories that the phosphine came from minerals that were blown around the atmosphere, from volcanic eruptions or from lightning.
Learn to arouse great interest
- They can be quite sure that they have found the chemical line, spectral line, which signals that the substance exists.
It also seems likely that it is phosphine they have found.
But that the phosphine came from life, it is much more uncertain, says Alexis Brandeker.
He himself does not really believe that it is microbes that are behind it, but believes that the report will lead to many people wanting to get into the subject and see if they can prove or disprove the finding.