This article is due to come out in the next day, but one site accidentally broke the embargo. Forgive the formatting, it's how someone was able to capture it before it was removed.
Incredible if true. Unlikely to be biological, is my immediate thought. However, there have been proposals - not sure how serious - to seed Venus' atmosphere with bioengineered bacteria that could metabolize sulphur and CO2 to "clean up" the soup and get the planet to start cooling off, so somebody thought it possible, at least. This has amusement value. Everybody looking at Mars or Titan or Europa, and there's Venus off by itself going "Bazinga!"
Cached version of the article that's easier to read: https://webcache.googleusercontent....thsky.org/?p=343883 &cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
And the story has hit the mainstream press. Linky: https://www.yahoo.com/news/astronomers-see-possible-hints-life-150124900.html
Phosphine gas is also produced by manufacturing methamphetamine, so Venus could be one hell of a drug lab.
And if it is meth being produced, it would be awesome to see a bunch of astronomers busting out "It's raining meth, hallelujah!" to...
Just watched a 17 minute video about this. Altho the phosphine result is reported with high confidence, it's yet to be independently verified and even then it's not automatically a 100% certainty of life. Short answer, it's time to send an atmospheric probe to Venus and have a firsthand look at the place.
I really admire the way the team is putting this out there. They're saying they've tried to eliminate every other possible cause for the results, but they're inviting everyone else to take a look at what they have. It reminds me of when CERN scientists turned up results that seemed to indicate they found particles that were faster than light. They put the results out there, invited everyone to comment and eventually the results showed there was no FTL involved. That's how I think these things should work. All that said, I totally agree, it's time to go back to Venus.
good idea! And while they (experts in various fields) are developing a plan to send a probe they can also try to find out and replicate the conditions (if any) under which phosphine can form in large quantities naturally without "life" as a catalyst. This could be solving the mystery from two different angles. That said discoveries like this are why I want to live for a few decades longer - eventual confirmation of life elsewhere in the universe and/or the "X" factor that turns non-living chemicals into life. I can't think of anything more epically exciting!
