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Life on Venus?

wobs said:
There might be life on Venus! They have found a bio signiture in the form of Phosphine, so as I interpret it, its not 100% certain that they have found life yet, but exciting news away...

http://astrobiology.com/2020/09/pho...of-venus---an-indicator-of-possible-life.html

Correct me if I'm wrong in that interpretation. Even one of my very sciency friends on FB says "There's life of Venus!".
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It is interesting. We know that extremophiles exist. Because we keep finding them in unexpected places. So I am open to the idea. Life itself is in many ways unexpected when it turns up or even survives in an unexpected environment.

But...

Phosphines (note plural) can naturally form chemically with no life involved at all.

For me, I quite like the idea that unexpected life may exists on Venus. It is really unlikely, but how cool would that be?

But I am not about to declare life exists on Venus until the hard science is in. And it isn't. Yet.

Thus I am content to sit on the fence. It could well be some form of life, sure. But I am not buying that until it is demonstrated.

And your "sciency" friends have failed to do that very thing. That is not very "sciency" on their part. Accepting a claim at face value is in the realm of religion, not science.
 
It'd be cool, but it I guess its also still possible there is some chemical reaction producing it, the atmosphere of Venus does contain a lot of chemicals, heat and a lot of lightning.
I presume they've ruled those out, but still.

That being said, if it were true it would open up possible biomes in the gas giants as well. And the sci-fi nerd in me is rejoicing with hope it's true :)
 
Fascinating, fascinating.

Saw this program on TV just now. Details fuzzy, I was multitasking away while watching, but the person being interviewed -- some stripe of bona fide scientist, although I didn't catch what kind! -- seemed pretty excited. Said that phosphenes in Saturn, say, is only to be expected, but in Venus apparently the only mechanism that we know of so far (given what we know about Venus) for phosphenes to be found in the quantities indicated, would be, yep, life!

Cool, very cool! And especially cool since this is Venus!
 
rjh01 said:
I have been told that in the atmosphere of Venus the temperature is reasonable, so maybe life could exist there. But what type?
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More seriously, in addition to the temperatures, it going to have to cope with the sulphuric acid.

It’s not impossible that there are self-sustaining chemical reactions going on there, but if it’s life, it’s going to be in the “it’s life, Jim, but not as we know it” territory.
 
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The one thing I do like about this is the way the scientists published their data, explained that they do not understand what is happing and sent out the call to prove that there is another explanation.

The way science is supposed to work. Something all our resident pseudo scientists could learn from (but won't)
 
abaddon said:
It is interesting. We know that extremophiles exist. Because we keep finding them in unexpected places. So I am open to the idea. Life itself is in many ways unexpected when it turns up or even survives in an unexpected environment.

But...

Phosphines (note plural) can naturally form chemically with no life involved at all.

For me, I quite like the idea that unexpected life may exists on Venus. It is really unlikely, but how cool would that be?

But I am not about to declare life exists on Venus until the hard science is in. And it isn't. Yet.

Thus I am content to sit on the fence. It could well be some form of life, sure. But I am not buying that until it is demonstrated.

And your "sciency" friends have failed to do that very thing. That is not very "sciency" on their part. Accepting a claim at face value is in the realm of religion, not science.
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I agree.
 
What the scientists said:

1. We found something unexpected and curious.

2. We have looked at a number of possible explanations but none of them seem to explain what we have observed.

3. One possible explanation of what we have observed is that the something is a result of a living process.

4. This appears to be very controversial and very possibly wrong.

5. We'll keep looking for other explanations.

6. Stand by.

What the press says:

Aliens invading from Venus.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
What the scientists said:

1. We found something unexpected and curious.

2. We have looked at a number of possible explanations but none of them seem to explain what we have observed.

3. One possible explanation of what we have observed is that the something is a result of a living process.

4. This appears to be very controversial and very possibly wrong.

5. We'll keep looking for other explanations.

6. Stand by.

What the press says:

Aliens invading from Venus.
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Now imagine the press doing the exact same thing routinely, about every event they can.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
What the scientists said:

1. We found something unexpected and curious.

2. We have looked at a number of possible explanations but none of them seem to explain what we have observed.

3. One possible explanation of what we have observed is that the something is a result of a living process.

4. This appears to be very controversial and very possibly wrong.

5. We'll keep looking for other explanations.

6. Stand by.

What the press says:

Aliens invading from Venus.
Click to expand...

I prefer the press version :).

No doubt the surface of Venus is likely to be too hot to support life. But there must be a “Goldilocks zone” in the atmosphere where temperatures are tolerable. Complex and/or organic chemicals seem to be lacking though.

I would like this to be true, but we will wait and see.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
What the scientists said:

1. We found something unexpected and curious.

2. We have looked at a number of possible explanations but none of them seem to explain what we have observed.

3. One possible explanation of what we have observed is that the something is a result of a living process.

4. This appears to be very controversial and very possibly wrong.

5. We'll keep looking for other explanations.

6. Stand by.

What the press says:

Aliens invading from Venus.
Click to expand...

I prefer the press version :).

No doubt the surface of Venus is likely to be too hot to support life. But there must be a “Goldilocks zone” in the atmosphere where temperatures are tolerable. Complex and/or organic chemicals seem to be lacking though.

I would like this (life, not invasion :D) to be true, but we will wait and see.
 
Steve said:
I prefer the press version :).

No doubt the surface of Venus is likely to be too hot to support life. But there must be a “Goldilocks zone” in the atmosphere where temperatures are tolerable.
Complex and/or organic chemicals seem to be lacking though.
Click to expand...
According to what I read, the detection was at altitude - pretty much in this zone (which yes, does exist, according to multiple sources I've read).

I would like this (life, not invasion :D) to be true, but we will wait and see.
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Apparently the biggest two caveats are that they only detected one type of signature for phosphine, and the data needs to be heavily processed to find it. This substantially increases the probability that it's a false signal. They were planning to look for a different signature, but COVID-19 interfered with that.

I don't have the article to hand, but I can search for it if there is demand.
 
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