Life on Venus? – Signs of Life Detected by MIT Team
In the 1970’s NASA landed its 2 Pioneer Spacecraft on Earth’s sister planet. The Soviet Union also landed several of its Venera probes there as well. Based on what they found, the idea of finding life on Venus seemed a virtual impossibility.
What the probes found there is often described as ‘hell’. The atmosphere on Venus is 96% carbon dioxide and incredibly dense. All of this creates a crushing pressure at the surface that is 92 times that which we experience on Earth.
For a person, it would be like diving nearly half a mine deep into the ocean. Depths that would crush a submarine.
The temperature on Venus is an unbelievable 867 degrees Fahrenheit, and clouds of sulfuric acid blanket the planet.
In an environment like this, most scientists agreed that chances of life existing on Venus would be highly unlikely. However, that thinking may change based on a recent discovery.
Nature Astronomy published the findings of the MIT based team which made the incredible find.
Using a telescope array in the Atacama region of Chile and the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii, the team peered into, and analyzed, the atmosphere of Venus.
No, the team has not spotted any Venusians with a telescope. But they have detected a gas (Phosphine) which they can only attribute to a living organism.
Since finding the Phosphine gas in the atmosphere, the team has been looking for any other explanation for its production. But they keep coming back to the same conclusion. – The gas could only have been produced by a living organism.
If they are correct, it means that there is some form of life in the clouds of Venus.
NASA is currently working with Russia on the Venera-D mission slated for the late-2020s. Part of this mission will include probes to sample the atmosphere.
In light of this recent discovery, perhaps the probes will be modified to help explain the Phosphine gas – or look for life.
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