"The detection of a gas in Venus’ atmosphere containing the chemical phosphine leads scientists to assert that something now alive is the only explanation for the chemical’s source"exciting, time to bring out the champagne Wat!
https://twitter.com/alfonslopeztena/sta ... 4752637952
Yes, of course, I thought that was implied by his post. There are nonbiological sources for phosphine, mainly in gas giants, but none yet so far identified for rocky planets like Venus. I honestly dont consider this a huge deal, because microbial life can be fairly common throughout the universe. Decades ago we conducted experiments showing that the basic building blocks of life only need a few fairly common ingredients (water, CO2, nitrogen and lightning, if I remember correctly.) Biology is just a subset of chemistry, not something magical. Of course we need to send a probe there to confirm this, because they haven't actually detected microbial life, just a chemical signature."The detection of a gas in Venus’ atmosphere containing the chemical phosphine leads scientists to assert that something now alive is the only explanation for the chemical’s source"exciting, time to bring out the champagne Wat!
https://twitter.com/alfonslopeztena/sta ... 4752637952
That is not what they are asserting. Please understand this, for the difference is subtle, yet crucial, and it is too often the cause of misleading clickbait.
What they are claiming is that they detected phosphine (with high confidence), at levels which current understanding of atmospheric chemistry cannot explain for Venus. So there is a small chance the detection or derived concentration level of phosphine on Venus is an error, or there is some crazy not-yet-understood atmospheric chemistry happening that makes their modelling erroneous (which would be a useful discovery in and of itself), or there really is life there making it, and if that's the case then it remains to be proven by further measurements.
We do not know that however, so the first discovery would be a pretty big deal, much like how the first exoplanet discoveries were a big deal even though we were quite confident they are common out there. What's particularly exciting is that this is our next-door neighbor world which we can quickly and easily access it for further study, and for being such an exotic form of potential life in such an extreme environment. (Phosphine producing anaerobic life exists on Earth, but we don't even fully understand it yet.)
I re-read his tweet and saw where he made the erroneous assumption lol, they haven't discovered life (yet), just a chemical signature that could possibly be from life. I had clicked on the New York Times link in his thread without reading his caption. The astrobiology field seems to be pretty excited, but taking a "wait and see attitude" at the same time. I guess they remember when such a finding for Mars was announced several years ago and it never panned out. Maybe the new Mars rover will be able to find something there.We do not know that however, so the first discovery would be a pretty big deal, much like how the first exoplanet discoveries were a big deal even though we were quite confident they are common out there. What's particularly exciting is that this is our next-door neighbor world which we can quickly and easily access it for further study, and for being such an exotic form of potential life in such an extreme environment. (Phosphine producing anaerobic life exists on Earth, but we don't even fully understand it yet.)
well it depends on what kind of life you are talking about, microbial life can exist in some very extreme conditions.I had to did a bit in the old forums. Back in 2012 I wrote that I think life on Venus is more likely than on Mars (but I'd still say probably no life on either). Mars is overrated, also for human settlements. Floating settlements in Venus' atmosphere still sound better as a permanent thing than bases on Mars for a number of reasons. It's technically harder though. We can build stuff on Mars now, but we're a long way from constructing a settlement on Venus.
So how long now before SpaceX goes to Venus? You know, Musk's plan for Mars is a cover story. He wants to make sure that nobody goes to Venus before him. He knows how Roald Amundsen planned his south pole expedition.
Probably not much for now. Since a pressure of 267 gigapascals (about 2.6 million times the atmospheric pressure) is necessary to maintain superconductivity.