Life on Venus?

 

Image courtesy of NASA - Jet Propulsion Laboratory, public domain.

Joel Kontinen

Astronomers have detected gas in the clouds of Venus.

 “That gas is phosphine - a molecule made up of one phosphorus atom and three hydrogen atoms.”

Now, here on earth “phosphine is associated with life, with microbes living in the guts of animals like penguins, or in oxygen-poor environments such as swamps.”

 But there are no penguins or even factories on Venus, so why does the gas be there, 50 kilometres above the surface. The scientist can be sure.

 We can be sceptical, as most scientist are. There are too many hurdles for life to have emerged, from the clouds that hang over our sister planet, and life has to be created it does not just appear in places that are inhospitable to life.

 

Source:

Amos,Jonathan, 2020. Is there life floating in the clouds of Venus? .BBC.News. 14 September.