Is there life on Venus? Scientists detect traces of phosphine and ammonia in the planet’s clouds – and say they could be coming from microbes
With its boiling temperatures and acidic clouds, it’s one of the most formidable worlds in our solar system.
But exciting new findings suggest life may exist on Venus, the second planet from the sun.
Researchers have confirmed traces of ammonia and phosphine in the planet’s clouds – two potential ‘biomarkers’ that are indicative of life.
On Earth, both compounds are produced during the decay of organic matter, such as plants and animals.
Because there are currently no other known natural processes for its production on Venus, it could be being produced by something scientists aren’t aware of.
It follows the original detection of phosphine in Venus’ clouds in 2020 – although the findings were disputed.
The new findings were presented at the National Astronomy Meeting 2024 at the University of Hull on Wednesday.
Professor Jane Greaves, an astronomer at Cardiff University and author on the findings, said ammonia has been seen before in the solar system, but in the gas giant planets Jupiter and Saturn.
‘It’s natural there because their gas is mostly hydrogen,’ she told MailOnline.
‘It’s much rarer on the rocky planets like Earth or Venus.’
Ammonia is a colorless, poisonous gas that occurs in nature, primarily produced by anaerobic decay of plant and animal matter.
Professor Greaves and colleagues detected the gas in Venusian clouds using the Green Bank telescope in West Virginia.
The giant 2.3-acre dish detects weak radio waves that rain down on us from objects in space.
‘In simple terms, the Green Bank telescope takes a rainbow of light except it does it in radio light,’ Professor Greaves said.
‘Where there is some missing light, that’s because a molecule has mopped it up and we use the exact wavelength to identify the molecule.’
The ammonia was detected in the upper parts of the planet’s clouds where it’s too cold for life to exist.
However, there is the possibility that the ammonia could also be in the deeper, warmer area of the clouds and is then rising to the upper parts.
That will be what the researchers will try to establish next.
Meanwhile, phosphine was discovered by a team led by Professor Greaves and Dr Dave Clements at Imperial College London’s physics department, by studying data from the James Clerk Maxwell telescope in Hawaii.
Phosphine, a colourless gas that smells like garlic or decaying fish, is naturally produced on Earth by certain microorganisms in the absence of oxygen.
It can also be released in small amounts from the breakdown of organic matter, or industrially synthesised in chemical plants.
Dr Clements stressed that the detection of...