Kind: captions
Language: en
scientists might have just discovered
signs of life on venus
it feels game changing it is so
unexpected but i never thought
in my life that it would be something we
should either look for that we would
find
in venus venus is about the size of
earth
but blanketed by a thick atmosphere the
surface
reaches more than 850 degrees hot enough
to melt lead
and the atmosphere is laced with
sulfuric acid
i mean venus used to be the popular
planet to look for life
numerous spacecraft like magellan have
flown to the planet
but not many have landed
and then yes we did send a few probes
that quite dramatically melted on the
way down
and that put us off i i get it i would
have i would have not
continued to try the surface of venus
remains absolutely abominable for life
it's so hot there so we wouldn't survive
at all
the sulfuric acid droplets they are
deathly to any life form
if you put any kind of life into
concentrated sulfuric acid
it'll just dissolve
even though venus's surface is way too
hot for any kind of life
there's this goldilocks zone in the
atmosphere that is not too hot not too
cold but just right for life
and that's exactly where we found
phosphine phosphine
the little molecule that might change
how we understand life in the universe
phosphine is known for just being a
really terrible
deadly molecule it was used as a
chemical warfare agent in the first
world war and sadly more recently by
isis all of which because it's a really
effective killer
phosphine is such a good killer of us
because it reacts so easily with the
oxygen that our bodies need to survive
but for life forms that don't require
oxygen phosphine isn't toxic
and some organisms actually produce it
phosphine is associated with
microbial life it's found in oxygen free
environments
such as wetlands and swamps and sludges
it's associated with feces
so we know for sure that phosphene is
associated with life here on earth so a
lot of my work was going
oh if this life on earth produces
phosphine
could other non-oxygen-loving alien life
produce it too
my original work had said if you find
phosphine on
any terrestrial planet it can only mean
life
and that wasn't an outrageous claim
until recently
then in late 2018 clara got a strange
email
it was only when jane grieves contacted
me about a year and a half ago
saying uh clara you're the phosphine
expert i think i found falsehood on
venus is that weird because i think it's
weird
then i did freak out because it is very
weird
using the james clerk maxwell telescope
in hawaii
astronomer jane greaves detected a hint
of phosphate in venus's atmosphere
and she found a signal of phosphine a
somewhat weak signal but it was enough
to propose to use the more powerful
alma atacama large millimeter array
telescope that is in the high
deserts of chile and observe venus again
and again found phosphine this time a
much stronger signal
and then we were sure the signal was
real so we spent the rest of
the year and a half that followed
showing that phosphine was the most
plausible
um explanation for that signal
and that if it is indeed phosphine life
as
strangely as that sounds is the most
plausible explanation for the phosphene
the team used computer models of venus's
atmosphere and geology
to try to create phosphine without life
they failed
it's still very very mysterious there
could be two different explanations
both of which are equally in my mind
preposterous
one is that there is some unknown
chemistry or phosphine might be produced
by some kind of life
in venus's clouds so far our technique
has been proving all the things that it
isn't
and we've exhausted everything we've got
with our knowledge of venus and
phosphine and chemistry and geology
and planetary dynamics we cannot
make phosphine in any non-biological way
that could justify the detection we we
got on venus
but i'm sure plenty of people will now
chip in with their own expertise
and and i can't wait to see what they
come up with
this is the first step of a very long
journey and we all we can say is
we're confident we have a robust
detection of phosphine gas in venus's
atmosphere
and the rest is really just future
research
some scientists are still skeptical that
phosphine on venus could
only be created by life if it is indeed
phosphine
and ambiguously so how do we prove
it is life and that is not trivial
i'm extremely excited that we did this
on venus next door where we actually
can go and check so when we get to that
point
let's go look we hope we can send a
mission a space mission to venus
look for complex molecules that would be
indicative of life and maybe somehow
even look for life itself and if we
found it
could be game changing for everyone not
just because
it would mean that there's life next
door which in itself i think
is a big enough deal it's very
implausible that life can
originate in both a planet like earth
and a planet like venus
which are so different in so many ways
and it not be something that can also
originate in a variety of other planets
and so night life might not just be next
door it might just be extremely common
and inevitable which means that there's
thousands and thousands of possibilities
for life
in the galactic neighborhood just
waiting to be discovered
so yes pretty big deal