A foreign team of astronomers announced Monday the discovery of a rare fuel molecule, phosphine, in the clouds of Venus, which may be the first falsified evidence of extraterrestrial life in the solar system.
Researchers say that on Earth, phosphine is manufactured industrially or by microbes that grow in oxygen-free environments. The foreign team, which includes British, American and Japanese researchers, published their findings in two articles: the clinical journal Nature on Monday and the journal. Astrobiology on Saturday.
Phosphine was first detected in observations by Cardiff University astronomer Jane Greaves at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii. The discovery later showed a more delicate radio telescope, the Atacama Large Millimeter / Submillimeter Array in Chile.
The team estimates that phosphine exists in the clouds of Venus at a low concentration, only about 20 molecules consistent with billions. However, after several calculations, they decided that there was no non-biological source on the planet that could be only the degrees of phosphine they found in the atmosphere.
Astronomers have speculated for decades that Venus’ upper clouds can simply supply microbes, floating away from the burning surface but have to tolerate very high acidity. They say phosphine detection can involve such extraterrestrial life in the “air. “
Another team member, Massachusetts Institute of Technology molecular astrophysics Clara Sousa Silva, studied phosphine as an oxygen-free life “biophyrma” fuel on planets around other stars. He said locating her on Venus is exciting and extraordinary.
But she said she raises many questions about how organisms, if any, can be alone in the planet’s atmosphere, where clouds are composed of about 90% sulfuric acid. Therefore, team members recognize that confirming the presence of “life” requires much more work.