2023-05-14 19:58:19
A group of astronomers has discovered incidents of life in the high clouds of Venus. A study published in the journal ‘Nature Astronomy’ evidences the presence of a rare molecule called Fosfina in the clouds of Venus.
To phosphine is a gas found in the Earth’s atmosphere, but the ad has been found above the clouds of Venus. phosphine could be a life indicator. Although common in the atmospheres of gas planets like Jupiter and Saturn, phosphine on Earth is associated with biology. Here, it is made up of decaying organic matter in swamps, bogs, and marshes. These Newly Discovered Molecules on Venus Are Made of Hydrogen and Phosphorus.
The molecules were detected thanks to the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope located in Hawaii, and the Alma Telescope, in Chile. Both facilities observed Venus at a wavelength of about one millimeter, much longer than what the human eye can see.
After verifying that both telescopes obtained the same results, the astronomers performed calculations to see if phosphine could come from natural processes on Venus. Both teams have noted that while these might be natural processes, they require more time to determine that the information is accurate.
The SOFIA telescope found no trace
In December 2022, a study with the now-retired Airborne Observatory SOFIA of NASA/DLR found phosphine on Venus, a gas associated with life on Earth, and that a previous study detected in 2020.
“Phosphine is a relatively simple chemical compound, it’s just a phosphorous atom with three hydrogens, so you’d think it would be fairly easy to produce. But on Venus, it’s not obvious how it could be done,” Martin Cordiner said in a statement. a researcher in astrochemistry and planetary science at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Its high spectral resolution also allowed to be sensitive to phosphine at high altitudes in the atmosphere of Venus, between 75 and 110 kilometers above the ground, the same region as the original find, with spatial coverage of the entire disk of Venus.
the researchers they saw no sign of phosphine. According to their results, if there is any phosphine present in the Venusian atmosphere, it is a maximum of about 0.8 parts phosphine per billion parts of everything else, much smaller than the initial estimate.
SOFIA was a joint project of NASA and the German Space Agency (DLR). It achieved full operational capability in 2014 and completed its last scientific flight on September 29, 2022.
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