Phosphine gas detected in Venusian atmosphere (Now with Poll!)

[essentialsaltes]

LINK

An international team of astronomers, led by Professor Jane Greaves of Cardiff University, today announced the discovery of a rare molecule – phosphine – in the clouds of Venus. On Earth, this gas is only made industrially, or by microbes that thrive in oxygen-free environments.

Astronomers have speculated for decades that high clouds on Venus could offer a home for microbes – floating free of the scorching surface, but still needing to tolerate very high acidity. The detection of phosphine molecules, which consist of hydrogen and phosphorus, could point to this extra-terrestrial ‘aerial’ life. The new discovery is described in a paper in Nature Astronomy.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist Dr William Bains led the work on assessing natural ways to make phosphine. Some ideas included sunlight, minerals blown upwards from the surface, volcanoes, or lightning, but none of these could make anywhere near enough of it. Natural sources were found to make at most one ten thousandth of the amount of phosphine that the telescopes saw.

No doubt many different experts will kick the tires on this, but the basic result seems sound [ETA: apparently it wasn't] while attributing it to life on Venus is a larger stretch that will likely require some kind of independent verification for it to really catch on.

 

[Nithavela]

My suggestion would be that there was once life on Venus but they screwed up just as bad as we are now.

 

[AV1611VET]

Didn't they find Gumby on Venus years ago?

 

[SelfSim]

LINK

An international team of astronomers, led by Professor Jane Greaves of Cardiff University, today announced the discovery of a rare molecule – phosphine – in the clouds of Venus. On Earth, this gas is only made industrially, or by microbes that thrive in oxygen-free environments.

So, by the simple act of just looking at what there is to see, science may now acquire knowledge about natural processes which don't present on Earth.

This is the main aim of planetary exploration in action .. and not looking for life elsewhere.

Very cool.

 

[sjastro]

You would think phosphine would be the antithesis to life given its MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet).

 

[SelfSim]

You would think phosphine would be the antithesis to life given its MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet).

Beats me how some can even conceive of what we mean by 'life' forming and existing a chemical environment like Venus' atmosphere in the first place(?)
I think it was a leftover 1960s (Carl) 'Sagan-ist' explanation for UV, water vapour and lower temperatures at higher altitudes(?)
Woo stuff, IMO.

 

[sjastro]

Beats me how some can even conceive of what we mean by 'life' forming and existing a chemical environment like Venus' atmosphere in the first place(?)
I think it was a leftover 1960s (Carl) 'Sagan-ist' explanation for UV, water vapour and lower temperatures at higher altitudes(?)
Woo stuff, IMO.

Phosphine is obviously harmless to anaerobic organisms and is found on Earth in low oxygen ecosystems such as swamps where such organisms thrive.
As a byproduct in the biochemistry of anaerobic organisms living in the Venusian clouds where temperatures are much lower compared to the surface; it might seem like a habitable environment but sulfuric acid is a major composition of the clouds (75-96% of sulfuric acid droplets) which makes their existence seem far fetched.

 

[SelfSim]

Phosphine is obviously harmless to anaerobic organisms and is found on Earth in low oxygen ecosystems such as swamps where such organisms thrive.
As a byproduct in the biochemistry of anaerobic organisms living in the Venusian clouds where temperatures are much lower compared to the surface; it might seem like a habitable environment but sulfuric acid is a major composition of the clouds (75-96% of sulfuric acid droplets) which makes their existence seem far fetched.

Yes .. also, those Earthly anaerobic organisms evolved from something else, in order to end up thriving around phosphine in our modern-day Earthly swamps.

Ancient Venusian prebiotics would have to have started out with that same capability, (within subsequent molecular survivability limits), in order for Venusian life to still be around today. If it survived, and now functions as life today, one might think it would be more consistent to say that where we should be looking for such Earth-like Venusian anaerobic organisms then, is modern-day Earthly swamp-like conditions ... on Venus, no? (Errr .. what? )

 

[Kylie]

I'll be following this with interest.

 

[SelfSim]

Good information-dense YouTube here.

Says the paper says that they've ruled out (see 5:06 mark on video):

- simple equilibrium thermodynamics;
- photochemical production produced by lightning;
- volcanic production;
- tectonic(?) events;
- meteoric delivery;
- major asteroid/comet impacts;
- solar wind proton delivery and other known endergonic processes.

ETA: Paper itself, is here.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Phosphine is obviously harmless to anaerobic organisms and is found on Earth in low oxygen ecosystems such as swamps where such organisms thrive.
As a byproduct in the biochemistry of anaerobic organisms living in the Venusian clouds where temperatures are much lower compared to the surface; it might seem like a habitable environment but sulfuric acid is a major composition of the clouds (75-96% of sulfuric acid droplets) which makes their existence seem far fetched.

I heard an expert in extremophiles say on TV that some Earth extremophiles could thrive in the 'habitable' zone of Venus' atmosphere - the conditions match the acidity and temperature of some hot volcanic pools on Earth where mats of bacteria can be found.

 

[JohnDB]

Ok...
So
If by some chance of really good engineering a probe could survive the sulphuric acid clouds that wants to destroy it...

Then it would have to be able to not be crushed in the atmospheric pressure of approximately 50 times the pressure of Earth's atmosphere (after surviving the vacuum of space)

And then it would have to float on the liquid basalt on the surface of the planet. (High temperatures that melt lead easily)

And then search for life in the form of bacteria...

I'm just not seeing this happening anytime soon.

Maybe we could send Elon Musk?

 

[Kylie]

Ok...
So
If by some chance of really good engineering a probe could survive the sulphuric acid clouds that wants to destroy it...

Then it would have to be able to not be crushed in the atmospheric pressure of approximately 50 times the pressure of Earth's atmosphere (after surviving the vacuum of space)

And then it would have to float on the liquid basalt on the surface of the planet. (High temperatures that melt lead easily)

And then search for life in the form of bacteria...

I'm just not seeing this happening anytime soon.

Maybe we could send Elon Musk?

Um, why do you think there is liquid basalt on Venus? The melting point of basalt is 984 to 1260 degrees. The surface temperature of Venus is only about 467 celsius.

 

[JohnDB]

Um, why do you think there is liquid basalt on Venus? The melting point of basalt is 984 to 1260 degrees. The surface temperature of Venus is only about 467 celsius.

Basalt is just a term used for a mixture of elements (but I could be wrong)

Lead definitely melts at 467...so does tin and other elements.

Either way there's a lot of volcanic activity on the surface of Venus and has been for thousands of years...

It's a planet best described as hell.
Acid clouds, burning sulphur, no oxygen and etc.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Ok...
So
If by some chance of really good engineering a probe could survive the sulphuric acid clouds that wants to destroy it...

Then it would have to be able to not be crushed in the atmospheric pressure of approximately 50 times the pressure of Earth's atmosphere (after surviving the vacuum of space)

And then it would have to float on the liquid basalt on the surface of the planet. (High temperatures that melt lead easily)

And then search for life in the form of bacteria...

I'm just not seeing this happening anytime soon.

No-one's suggesting trying to find life on the surface of Venus. Craft have already landed there and reported extreme conditions totally unsuitable for life-as-we-know-it.

 

[JohnDB]

No-one's suggesting trying to find life on the surface of Venus. Craft have already landed there and reported extreme conditions totally unsuitable for life-as-we-know-it.

The Russians have had much better success than the Americans have...their craft actually landed and worked for all of 22 seconds.

 

[Halbhh]

LINK

An international team of astronomers, led by Professor Jane Greaves of Cardiff University, today announced the discovery of a rare molecule – phosphine – in the clouds of Venus. On Earth, this gas is only made industrially, or by microbes that thrive in oxygen-free environments.

Astronomers have speculated for decades that high clouds on Venus could offer a home for microbes – floating free of the scorching surface, but still needing to tolerate very high acidity. The detection of phosphine molecules, which consist of hydrogen and phosphorus, could point to this extra-terrestrial ‘aerial’ life. The new discovery is described in a paper in Nature Astronomy.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist Dr William Bains led the work on assessing natural ways to make phosphine. Some ideas included sunlight, minerals blown upwards from the surface, volcanoes, or lightning, but none of these could make anywhere near enough of it. Natural sources were found to make at most one ten thousandth of the amount of phosphine that the telescopes saw.

No doubt many different experts will kick the tires on this, but the basic result seems sound, while attributing it to life on Venus is a larger stretch that will likely require some kind of independent verification for it to really catch on.

Astronomers were surprised years ago to detect complex organic molecules out in space in gas clouds. It had not been expected (perhaps no one had tried to work out such a likelihood). But, given the observation, in time we heard of ways that that various such molecules can form without life, because it was a problem to figure out. Such could happen here also. We'll see.

 

[JohnDB]

Astronomers were surprised years ago to detect complex organic molecules out in space in gas clouds. It had not been expected (perhaps no one had tried to work out such a likelihood). But, given the observation, in time we heard of ways that that various such molecules can form without life, because it was a problem to figure out. Such could happen here also. We'll see.

Well there's also the chance that they are incorrect in what they believe that they have seen as well...
Granted their findings were repeated...but they also thought that the atmospheric pressure was a lot less too.

 

[SelfSim]

Interesting ..
Just reading through one of key the reference papers behind Venus discovery paper, ie:
Phosphine as a Biosignature Gas in Exoplanet
it says (my underlines):

Despite a large body of robust circumstantial evidence for the production of phosphine by life, the exact mechanisms for biologically-associated production of PH3 are still debated, and the metabolic pathway leading to PH3 production in anaerobic bacteria is unknown. However, we note that the absence of a known enzymatic mechanism is not evidence for the absence of biological production. The synthetic pathways for most of life’s natural products are not known, and yet their origin is widely accepted to be biological because of the implausibility of their abiotic synthesis, their obligate association with life, and their chemical similarity to other biological products. For example, a recently published, manually curated, database of natural molecules produced by life on Earth contains ~220,000 unique molecules of biological origin, produced by thousands of species (Petkowski et al. 2019a) while the number of known, experimentally elucidated, metabolic pathways from organisms belonging to all three domains of life is only ~2,720 (Caspi et al. 2017).

Interesting!

This whole exercise looks like a hunt to firmen up the environmental constraints under which phosphine can exist in exo-planetary atmospheres, in pre-emption of upcoming James Webb space telescope surveys.

Also, in the light of there being no known (demonstrated) metabolic pathway for its production by Earth-life, (ie: hypothesised only), the idea of the validity of it necessarily being an exo-planetary atmospheric biosignature, is what's really being probed and tested out on Venus' atmosphere(?)

 

[sjastro]

I heard an expert in extremophiles say on TV that some Earth extremophiles could thrive in the 'habitable' zone of Venus' atmosphere - the conditions match the acidity and temperature of some hot volcanic pools on Earth where mats of bacteria can be found.

We have the benefit of knowing extremeophiles exist on Earth as well as their biochemical activity.
The only way we will prove their existence on Venus is through direct detection.
Despite the process of elimination of non biochemical processes as being potential sources of phosphine on Venus, there remains the possibility of some unknown mechanism.

One can draw parallels with the mysterious element Nebulium.
Helium was discovered as a spectral line in the Sun's chromosphere before its discovery on Earth which was a success for remote observation.
Remote observations however can also lead to wrong conclusions.
The OIII spectral line in emission nebulae was wrongly attributed to an unknown element named Nebulium in the 19th century.
Nebulium turned out to be being a quantum mechanical "forbidden" transition of the doubly ionized oxygen atom O²⁺ which can only exist in the extreme vacuum of outer space due to low collision rates between atoms.