Don’t worry, they aren’t signaling us. Or aiming at us.
But, Venus has just gotten the hook it needs to start stripping money away from the idiotic Manned Mars mission budget.
Why Astronomers Think A Poisonous Gas On Venus Could Suggest Life On This Deadly Planet.
Scott Manley - September 14th, 2020
The surface of Venus is one of the least habitable places in the solar system but astronomers studying the planet have found a chemical in the upper atmosphere which they’ve been unable to explain by regular chemical processes.
This is a long way from proof that life exists on Venus, but, the astronomers have worked hard over the last 3 years to rule out more mundane explanations. I won’t be surprised if someone else finds a less exciting explanation, but equally, I wouldn’t be entirely unsurprised if life found a way to persist in the atmosphere of Venus and remains there today.
There are a bunch of other videos that folks have been pumping out today and a few that older ones’ that hinted at this.
The origins of this life could be the oceans that used to cover Venus up until as recently as a few 100 million years ago, after existing for billions of years.
It appears that a lack of plate tectonics may have doomed the further evolution of the planet and of live beyond basic microbes.
More evidence Earth’s life is a result of an intimate dance between Geology and Biology.
We Think Venus Had Water For Billions of Years, Losing it Suddenly
Anton Petrov
For decades, planetary scientists have suspected that ancient Mars was a much warmer, wetter environment than it is today, but estimates of just how much water Mars has lost since its formation vary widely. Now, new isotopic measurements by researchers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center reveal that an ocean once covered approximately twenty percent of the Martian surface. This new picture of early Mars is considerably wetter than many previous estimates, raising the odds for the ancient habitability of the Red Planet.
Yeah, that’s what happens when I’m rushed. Had a few windows open and accidentally grabbed shit off the wrong page, luckily I noticed it in time to at least switch the url before having to run.
If Venus had water for billions of years, it could have been Earth-like in having vast variety of life forms. Advanced life forms there may have discovered oil, coal, and natural gas as sources of energy, and then blew away their more liveable atmosphere with global warming.
Now the only life that can survive the hell that Venus has become, are possible extremophiles living in the atmosphere.
The most interesting point, I think, is that if there is life on Venus, even if it is just some airborne microbes, it is indicative of the development of LIFE being the rule rather than the exception, in our Universe, or at least in our solar system.
Yeah, but don’t forget it took “advanced” a few billion years to develop here on Earth.
If Venus had been on the same sort of developmental time line, complex life would have just been getting a foothold, when the stuffed up* planet exploded with internal heat and volcanism.
*Stuffed up, like having no tectonics to provide outlets for expending extra energy.
Something very very roughly analogues happened here on Earth during the snowball eras, with the mass of ice holding down the kettle cover, until the pressure got too much and tectonics let loose with massive volcanism that increased atmospheric CO2 levels and such, and brought back Earth from the brink of death/
you are talking about finding a sign of life in Venus. If Venus had water for billions of years, it could have been Earth-like in having a vast variety of life forms.it will more clear in the future that what is the probability of life in Venus.
you are talking about finding a sign of life in Venus. for life on any planet, there is a basic need for water, atmosphere, and of course humans. if there is the probability of water and a suitable atmosphere for humans, so it may be a sign of life in Venus.
Hot off the press. Saw it in the sidebar, don’t have time to listen to it beyond the first couple minutes right now, but am parking it here so I don’t lose it. Promises to be a fascinating talk.
Life on Venus? Or much ado about nothing?
Nov 18, 2020
For decades, we thought of Venus as a completely uninhabitable planet because of the hellish environment on its surface. Yet, several scientists have championed the idea that life could exist in the thick cloud decks that shroud the planet. Several weeks ago, a team of astronomers reported the detection of phosphine on Venus. If this stinky, toxic, perhaps biogenic gas does exist on Venus as reported, we stand to learn something profound.
If clever chemists succeed in identifying a nonbiological source that produces phosphine, we will learn about the limitations of using atmospheric biosignatures to infer life. If they fail, this discovery increases our already high motivation to go to Venus and study its atmosphere in situ with 21st-century instruments.
To discuss this amazing discovery and its consequences for the search for life beyond Earth, we invited two astronomers:
Clara Sousa-Silva, co-author of the study about phosphine on Venus and
David Grinspoon, astrobiologist and member of the SETI Institute’s Science Advisory Board, and is part of the Breakthrough Initiative and co-investigator on multiple proposed missions to search for primitive life in the clouds of Venus.
The speakers will discuss whether or not phosphine detected on the planet next door is a signature of alien biology and how we might one day send a space probe to find out.
Am just newly-registered on here, so just ‘testing the waters.’ Would be curious to know how the astronomers & astrobiologists were able to discount their phosphine as having been inorganically produced via the protonation of phosphide (e.g., exogenously-delivered mineral phosphide contained in metallic meteorites).
@bodes Would be curious to know how the astronomers & astrobiologists were able to discount their phosphine as having been inorganically produced via the protonation of phosphide (e.g., exogenously-delivered mineral phosphide contained in metallic meteorites).
I don’t know enough about the chemistry, but I imagine it’s also being looked at. It’s not like the finding was universally accepted, indeed seems there’s some healthy skepticism going around - so I’ll bet someone is looking in that also.
In chemistry, protonation (or hydronation) is the addition of a proton (or hydron, or hydrogen cation), (H+) to an atom, molecule, or ion, forming the conjugate acid.
We thoroughly explore the potential pathways of formation of phosphine in a Venusian environment, including in the planet's atmosphere, cloud and haze layers, surface, and subsurface. We investigate gas reactions, geochemical reactions, photochemistry, and other non-equilibrium processes. None of these potential phosphine production pathways are sufficient to explain the presence of ppb phosphine levels on Venus.
The presence of PH3, therefore, must be the result of a process not previously considered plausible for Venusian conditions. The process could be unknown geochemistry, photochemistry, or even aerial microbial life, given that on Earth phosphine is exclusively associated with anthropogenic and biological sources. The detection of phosphine adds to the complexity of chemical processes in the Venusian environment and motivates in situ follow up sampling missions to Venus. …
Their considered pathways do indeed include both Dark Thermal Chemistry & Photochemistry, but nonetheless they don’t appear to have included a consideration of exogenously-delivered materials that may contain phosphide.
