They find phosphine in the clouds of Venus, a gas that could indicate that there is life

"Life in the clouds of Venus? The hypothesis that scientists Carl Sagan and Harold Morowitz first raised in the 1960s has been gaining support among the astrophysicist community in recent years. And that despite being a hellish world and extremely acidic. Imagine the highest temperatures in the Solar System (462 degrees on its surface, enough to melt lead.) And its clouds, in which there is a pleasant 30 degrees, are composed of 90% sulfuric acid.

"While the conditions on the surface of Venus make the hypothesis of life there implausible, its clouds are an entirely different story. As noted a few years ago, water, carbon dioxide and sunlight - prerequisites for photosynthesis - abound in the vicinity of clouds, "wrote Sagan and Morowitz on October 16, 1967 in the scientific journal

.

Today, (almost) exactly 53 years later, proof is presented for the first time that microbial life may exist in the clouds of Venus.

A team led by the British Jane Greaves, from the University of Cardiff, has found in them a gas called phosphine.

It is a rare molecule that on Earth can only be produced industrially or by some bacteria that do not need oxygen to live.

The announcement, made with great caution by the authors of the discovery, will be made this Monday at 5:00 p.m., simultaneously during a press conference organized by the Royal Astronomical Society of London and through the publication of an article in the journal

.

Phosphine in the clouds of Venus was first detected in 2017 by Jane Greaves with the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT)

, which is located in Hawaii and belongs to the East Asia Observatory.

To confirm the results, ALMA, the world's largest radio telescope, located in the Chilean desert, was used, which has more sensitivity.

The 45 antennas of the radio telescope of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) confirmed the detection of phosphine, one of the main biomarkers, that is, one of the chemical fingerprints that can indicate the presence of some type of living being.

After spending three years doing tests and simulations to try to determine if this phosphine could have been formed in Venusian clouds by non-biological natural processes, the authors of this international study conclude that despite the fact that the amount detected is small (20 molecules of this gas per every billion), is much higher than it would be if its origin were not biological.

Venus, captured by the ALMAESO telescope

They have therefore ruled out that this phosphine is the result of known processes such as volcanism, the fall of meteorites, electric lightning or in its formation, sunlight or minerals from the surface of that rocky planet have intervened.

New questions

The only explanation with the current knowledge is that its origin is geological or chemical processes unknown to us but that could take place on Venus or a much more exciting possibility: that it has been produced by living beings.

That is, it is not that organisms have been found in the clouds of Venus, but a gas that could indirectly reveal the possible existence of these organisms.

If that hypothesis were confirmed, Venus would be the first place outside of Earth where life is found,

a desire that the scientific community has been pursuing for decades.

However, the authors, including British, American and Japanese scientists, are very cautious and although they consider their discovery to be significant, they point out that more research is needed to understand where this phosphine comes from.

Clara Sousa Silva, co-author of the study and a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has investigated phosphine as a biomarker to try to detect life on exoplanets: "The discovery of phosphine on Venus raises many questions, for example, how can an organism survive in that environment. On Earth, some microbes can resist 5% acid in their environment, but the clouds of Venus are composed almost entirely of acid, "he says in a press release.

J. Miguel Mas Hesse, astrophysicist at the Center for Astrobiology (CAB / CSIC-INTA), recalls however, "that

."

Although he points out that "phosphine can be formed by non-biological processes in the interstellar medium and, in principle, also in the clouds of Venus, the interesting thing about the result is that the amount they have detected, even though it is very small in absolute values, is 10,000 times higher than expected by abiotic processes, "says Mas in a telephone conversation.

As the Spanish astrophysicist recalls, in a previous article published in 2018, "some of the signatories of this study presented today already proposed that if phosphine were found in sufficiently high amounts in the atmosphere of some rocky exoplanet, it would be a practically safe test. of the existence of biological processes. Like all scientific research, the observations will have to be repeated, the analysis verified, making sure that the origin is not abiotic. But if it is confirmed, the result has tremendous implications ", points out the former director of the CAB.

"Our current knowledge of the chemistry of phosphine in the atmospheres of rocky planets excludes the production of phosphine by non-biological processes

,

astronomer Leonardo Testi, who has not participated in the study, said in a statement from the European Southern Observatory (ESO). the investigation.

"Confirming the existence of life in the atmosphere of Venus would be a huge milestone for astrobiology. Therefore, it is essential to continue this exciting result and do more theoretical and observational studies that can rule out the possibility that phosphine in rocky planets could have a different chemical origin than it has on Earth, "says Testi, director of European Operations for the ALMA radio telescope.

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