Theres life Jim but not as we know it - There's a real chance that life exists on Venus

[Master Disaster]

@mods I realise this one is skirting the line, do with it as you see fit.

 

Scientists are currently debating the very real possibility that there could be life on Venus after the discovery of a gas in the atmosphere that, on Earth, is associated with biological life that exists in environments which contain low levels of Oxygen. Its safe to say that Venus would qualify as a low oxygen atmosphere, its mostly made up of Carbon Dioxide and Sulphuric Acid.

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It's an extraordinary possibility - the idea that living organisms are floating in the clouds of Planet Venus.

But this is what astronomers are now considering after detecting a gas in the atmosphere they can't explain.

 

That gas is phosphine - a molecule made up of one phosphorus atom and three hydrogen atoms.

 

On Earth, phosphine is associated with life, with microbes living in the guts of animals like penguins, or in oxygen-poor environments such as swamps.

 

For sure, you can make it industrially, but there are no factories on Venus; and there are certainly no penguins.

As with all unknowns in science the team is making sure to point out that its not impossible that this gas is coming from a natural source.

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So why is this gas there, 50km up from the planet's surface? Prof Jane Greaves, from Cardiff University, UK and colleagues are asking just this question.

 

They've published a paper in the journal Nature Astronomy detailing their observations of phosphine at Venus, as well as the investigations they've made to try to show this molecule could have a natural, non-biological origin.

 

But for the moment, they're stumped - as they tell the BBC's Sky At Night programme, which has talked at length to the team

So far nobody has been able to come up with an explanation for this phenomenon which was observed using a radio telescope in Hawaii and verified using an array telescope in Chile. The team are encouraging anybody with any ideas to submit them for consideration.

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Given everything we know about Venus and the conditions that exist there, no-one has yet been able to describe an abiotic pathway to phosphine, not in the quantities that have been detected. This means a life source deserves consideration.

 

"Through my whole career I have been interested in the search for life elsewhere in the Universe, so I'm just blown away that this is even possible," Prof Greaves said. "But, yes, we are genuinely encouraging other people to tell us what we might have missed. Our paper and data are open access; this is how science works."

 

Prof Greaves' team first identified phosphine at Venus using the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii, and then confirmed its presence using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile.

 

Phosphine has a distinctive "absorption line" that these radio telescopes discern at a wavelength of about 1mm. The gas is observed at mid-latitudes on the planet at roughly 50-60km in altitude. The concentration is small - making up only 10-20 parts in every billion atmospheric molecules - but in this context, that's a lot.

Venus is often described as "a hell hole" since its surface atmosphere is so toxic however as you get closer to space the atmospheric conditions do improve. Space craft that we have landed on the planets surface have lasted minutes.

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Venus is not at the top of the list when thinking of life elsewhere in our Solar System. Compared to Earth, it's a hellhole. With 96% of the atmosphere made up of carbon dioxide, it has experienced a runaway greenhouse effect. Surface temperatures are like those in a pizza oven - over 400 degrees.

 

Space probes that have landed on the planet have survived just minutes before breaking down. And yet, go 50km up and it's actually "shirtsleeves conditions".

The major set back of this theory is the gaseous sulphuric acid in the atmosphere, anybody familiar with chemistry will know sulphuric acid is very bad for organic materials here on Earth however there's no telling what life on Venus might have evolved to deal with the conditions.

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The clouds are thick and they're mainly composed (75-95%) of sulphuric acid, which is catastrophic for the cellular structures that make up living organisms on Earth.

Dr William Bains, who's affiliated to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US, is a biochemist on the team. He's studied various combinations of different compounds expected to be on Venus; he's examined whether volcanoes, lightning and even meteorites could play a role in making PH3 - and all of the chemical reactions he's investigated, he says, are 10,000 times too weak to produce the amount of phosphine that's been observed.

 

To survive the sulphuric acid, Dr Bains believes, airborne Venusian microbes would either have to use some unknown, radically different biochemistry, or evolve a kind of armour.

 

"In principle, a more water-loving life could hide itself away inside a protective shell of some sorts inside the sulphuric acid droplets," he told Sky At Night. "We're talking bacteria surrounding themselves by something tougher than Teflon and completely sealing themselves in. But then how do they eat? How do they exchange gases? It's a real paradox."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54133538

 

Damn. I realise its very unlikely but imagine we do discover life on Venus. This would be a good indication that life in the universe is actually very common, it would be one of those pivotal moments in science and would be incredibly exciting.

[TempestCatto]

But is it smarter than a 5th grader?

[Lurick]

While I won't get my hopes up this is still really cool given the possibilities of life. It might not be carbon based as we know it, maybe silicon based or something as there have been reports of carbon+silicon based organisms being possible, it wouldn't necessarily be able to grow into very large organisms that we know of but to find life, and that which might even be non-carbon based, would be an amazing find for sure.

[Real_PhillBert]

Who had Aliens in September?!

 

 

But seriously, there is still a lot to learn about this before jumping to little green men. Although it would be pretty cool to find microbial life.

[Bombastinator]

45 minutes ago, TempestCatto said:

But is it smarter than a 5th grader?

No.

[TempestCatto]

5 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

No.

Can't handle a joke it seems ._.

[BuckGup]

It would be cool to see if we found tiny microbial life and somehow it helped us with diseases like penicillin 

[StDragon]

If it does exist, most likely it originated from Earth via panspermia at some point in the distant past.

 

Most likely however this is either sensor error and/or misreading of the data collected.

[Bombastinator]

2 hours ago, TempestCatto said:

Can't handle a joke it seems ._.

It my general policy that if someone pulls your leg it is useful for it to come off in their hand.

[tikker]

12 minutes ago, StDragon said:

If it does exist, most likely it originated from Earth via panspermia at some point in the distant past.

 

Most likely however this is either sensor error and/or misreading of the data collected.

Unlikely to be a sensor error I think. Pretty good care is taken to avoid that and that would be pointed out during the peer review process. The detection also is quite believable in my opinion as in significantly different from the noise.

The full article is available on Nature Astronomy: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-020-1174-4

 

They also don't make a big claim life, just that it is a possibility:

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Even if confirmed, we emphasize that the detection of PH3 is not robust evidence for life, only for anomalous and unexplained chemistry. There are substantial conceptual problems for the idea of life in Venus’s clouds—the environment is extremely dehydrating as well as hyperacidic. However, we have ruled out many chemical routes to PH3, with the most likely ones falling short by four to eight orders of magnitude (Extended Data Fig. 10). To further discrimi-nate between unknown photochemical and/or geological processes as the source of Venusian PH3, or to determine whether there is life in the clouds of Venus, substantial modelling and experimentation will be important. Ultimately, a solution could come from revisiting Venus for in situ measurements or aerosol return.

 

[Bombastinator]

18 minutes ago, StDragon said:

If it does exist, most likely it originated from Earth via panspermia at some point in the distant past.

 

Most likely however this is either sensor error and/or misreading of the data collected.

That sounds messy.

[HenrySalayne]

3 hours ago, huilun02 said:

And if you look at the chemical process to produce phosphine it becomes apparent its nowhere as difficult to naturally occur on that hellhole of a planet than on earth.

 

They are really stretching it to try and sensationalize the discovery of a gas on a planet...

You should read the article more carefully. The concentration of PH₃ is above the expected natural equilibrium of chemical processes. It is either created by an unknown catalytic process or a lifeform.

Getting a probe to Venus is pretty cheap, fast and easy. We will probably see a mission to answer this question within the next decade.

37 minutes ago, StDragon said:

Most likely however this is either sensor error and/or misreading of the data collected.

And what piece of information brought you to this conclusion?

[Master Disaster]

27 minutes ago, tikker said:

Unlikely to be a sensor error I think. Pretty good care is taken to avoid that and that would be pointed out during the peer review process. The detection also is quite believable in my opinion as in significantly different from the noise.

The full article is available on Nature Astronomy: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-020-1174-4

 

They also don't make a big claim life, just that it is a possibility:

Yep, the team actually spent 3 years examining every alternative production method they could imagine and non came close to producing enough to explain these findings.

 

I don't think anybody really expects this to be true but A LOT of people are hoping for it.

[tikker]

3 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Yep, the team actually spent 3 years examining every alternative production method they could imagine and non came close to producing enough to explain these findings.

 

I don't think anybody really expects this to be true but A LOT of people are hoping for it.

Similar to when they detected 21 cm absorption from the early Universe or when they made black hole image. Everything from different algorithms to literally rotating and resizing the instrument to find any known explanation.

 

It would be pretty awesome if it was actually lifeforms producing it. Could you imagine all those years of searching only to find it right in your backyard. I kinda hope it's true.

[StDragon]

25 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

And what piece of information brought you to this conclusion?

Occam's razor; human error is the most likely explanation to that of actual life being there. But yes, possible a catalytic process too.

[Master Disaster]

33 minutes ago, StDragon said:

Occam's razor; human error is the most likely explanation to that of actual life being there. But yes, possible a catalytic process too.

Human error? The discovery has been verified by not only a different telescope but also a different kind of telescope. It was discovered using a single dish radio and verified by a multi dish array. There's very little doubt the gas is there, the question is where did it come from?

 

You really think they spent 3 years looking into it without eliminating the possibility of error and triple checking every single data point they had? Then they went public and published a paper on it? Then they openly invited anyone to peer review it and come up with theories? All without actually knowing what they were saying was 100% accurate?

 

47 minutes ago, tikker said:

Similar to when they detected 21 cm absorption from the early Universe or when they made black hole image. Everything from different algorithms to literally rotating and resizing the instrument to find any known explanation.

 

It would be pretty awesome if it was actually lifeforms producing it. Could you imagine all those years of searching only to find it right in your backyard. I kinda hope it's true.

That would be incredible and as I said earlier, would be a pivotal moment in science. After that the assumption would be that life is far more common that we believe at the moment and can exist almost anywhere.

[HenrySalayne]

46 minutes ago, StDragon said:

Occam's razor; human error is the most likely explanation to that of actual life being there.

No, it's not the most likely explanation. Human error and wrong data is pretty much the most unlikely theory.

How many planets have been visited by humans? How many of these worlds had lifeforms? If we consider all the places on earth we were surprised to find microbial life, it's not unlikely to find microbial life on other worlds. Maybe Mars, maybe Venus, Europa, Enceladus, etc. There are many possible candiates just in this solar system.

[Bombastinator]

4 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

No, it's not the most likely explanation. Human error and wrong data is pretty much the most unlikely theory.

How many planets have been visited by humans? How many of these worlds had lifeforms? If we consider all the places on earth we were surprised to find microbial life, it's not unlikely to find microbial life on other worlds. Maybe Mars, maybe Venus, Europa, Enceladus, etc. There are many possible candiates just in this solar system.

The issue I think is there has so far been 0% possibility of extra terrestrial life. This discovery has raised the possibility to fractionally above zero.  It may well come crashing down to zero again.  The probability of “nope” remains higher than the probability of “yup” though.  This does NOT mean that the answer is “No” it’s merely “probably no” the people turning a conditional maybe into “yes” or “no” are both talking through their “hats” to use an old fashioned term more palatable than the modern one which means more or less the same thing.  I see this far far too often as of late in all sorts of things.  “Might” is not “will” or “won’t” that’s not reality, that’s marketing.  Taking a chance, making it, and then claiming “you knew it all the time” is BS.  Guessing is not knowing.

[StDragon]

2 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

The issue I think is there has so far been 0% possibility of extra terrestrial life. This discovery has raised the possibility to fractionally above zero.  It may well come crashing down to zero again.  The probability of “nope” remains higher than the probability of “yup” though.  This does NOT mean that the answer is “No” it’s merely “probably no” the people turning a conditional maybe into “yes” or “no” are both talking through their “hats” to use an old fashioned term more palatable than the modern one which means more or less the same thing.  I see this far far too often as of late in all sorts of things.  “Might” is not “will” or “won’t” that’s not reality, that’s marketing.  Taking a chance, making it, and then claiming “you knew it all the time” is BS.  Guessing is not knowing.

THIS!

There is two compelling schools of thought here of which I'm torn between:

• On one hand, correct, factually we've discovered no other life anywhere else other than here on Earth.
• On the other. we have entire an entire industry dedicated to disinfectant with products galore. We've even recently lost the antibiotic race to the point of being in a post-biotic era unable to stop super-bugs. Evolution was quick on that; specifically because bacteria are very promiscuous in shedding and sharing DNA despite being asexual in nature. Meaning, we couldn't eradicate life even if we wanted too. Simply put, life finds a way.

I'm in the camp that believes that life here on Earth started in hydrothermal vents. The heat and chemistry probably bootstrapped the process of life from RNA to DNA based forms. A process known as chemo-synthesis. From there, it floated to the ocean surface and evolved to rely on sunlight through photosynthesis. Through the natural evolutionary process, the rest as they say, is history.

 

General consensus is that if you're going to be looking for extraterrestrial life, you first start off by analyzing the atmosphere (can't be done well or at all with current technology) of exoplanets; specifically for high concentrations of O2 (oxygen). Sure, life could possibly take on other forms or exhale other gas, but as the saying goes "we only know what we know". But the thing with oxygen is that it can't be found in large quantities of an atmosphere without life (essentially reverse-entropic). O2 loves to bind with other elements. So it must contently be cracked from its bonds. Life does that. In fact the Great Oxidation Event is good place to start for those that don't know.

 

[Trik'Stari]

8 hours ago, Real_PhillBert said:

Who had Aliens in September?!

-snip

But seriously, there is still a lot to learn about this before jumping to little green men. Although it would be pretty cool to find microbial life.

Shit, now I'm just trying to think of something to put my money on for October.

 

Uuuuuuhhhh......Either peace in the Middle east, or global warming turns out to actually be an enormous scam.

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

Shit, now I'm just trying to think of something to put my money on for October.

 

Uuuuuuhhhh......Either peace in the Middle east, or global warming turns out to actually be an enormous scam.

Peace in the Middle East for me.  Global warming has been a thing on the scientific radar since the seventies.  All kinds of things have been done to try and kill it but they’ve failed.  Used to be a major focus of big oil companies. They’ve had other problems lately.  Peace in the Middle East has been something various forces have been trying desperately to make happen ever since world war 2 and its never worked for more than months. 

[S w a t s o n]

I'm gonna be mad if we find the equivalent of deep sea vent bacteria just fucking floating in the clouds of venus somehow existing for millions of years without ever touching surface....if that shit is real every fucking planet with any possible water has life change my mind

[Trik'Stari]

4 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Peace in the Middle East for me.  Global warming has been a thing on the scientific radar since the seventies.  All kinds of things have been done to try and kill it but they’ve failed.  Used to be a major focus of big oil companies. They’ve had other problems lately.  Peace in the Middle East has been something various forces have been trying desperately to make happen ever since world war 2 and its never worked for more than months. 

Ooh, I got another one.

 

Statehood for the parts of the US that aren't considered states at the moment. That's a random and weird thing that could happen.

 

Although I loathe to see DC become a state. I've had to interact with their local government on a business level and they put the I in Incompetence. Or malice for that matter.

[Fatih19]

I think it would be cool to see life. But I think some people have an inherent bias to think there is another life out there because they can't cope with the existential crisis from being alone in the universe.

[Bombastinator]

13 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

Ooh, I got another one.

 

Statehood for the parts of the US that aren't considered states at the moment. That's a random and weird thing that could happen.

 

Although I loathe to see DC become a state. I've had to interact with their local government on a business level and they put the I in Incompetence. Or malice for that matter.

It’s been on permanent offer for 50 years.  Iirc there were voteS on it multiple times.  The various protectorates have either narrowly or widely preferred their half in half out status.  There have even been “just fricken pick one” demands.  These are quite close.  Too close for the comfort of various administrations who have tested it.  The problem is there is a lot of military presence in them.  Losing them creates immense strategic challenges.  Trump might possibly make Puerto Rico become a state.  They have the least military necessity and have been hit really hard by Covid.  The problem is puerto ricans hate trump with a desperate passion for really pretty good cause.  Giving them senators and congressmen prior to the election is not something he is liable to do.  Might happen immediately after he wins though.