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OT: Life on Venus ?!

If confirmed then this is really quite an unexpected surprise but phosphine has been detected in the upper atmosphere of Venus and in sufficient amounts that something must be making it continuously.

No known inorganic or photochemical process can do that so it is just possible that these ALMA observations really are confirmation of life on another planet. Certainly the atmosphere of Venus is not in chemical equilibrium in the way that you would expect. It could be something else odd going on but it has to be worth looking for microbes in the clouds.

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The instrumental technique to get a high resolution spectrum in the 1mm waveband is quite ingenious.

BBC Sky at Night did a special on it last night - you may need to spoof a UK IP address to watch.

Interviews with the researchers and a biochemist that has tried to find any purely inorganic reactions that might possibly make phosphine.

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Venus cloud decks are extremely acidic. The demonstration of what happens to various terrestrial things when subjected to conc sulphuric acid are amusing. Seems like some things could survive - various terrestrial succulents have sufficiently waxy skins to resist conc. H2SO4. And extremophiles have been found in highly unlikely places including sulphurous springs but nothing quite so extreme as on Venus.

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Regards, 
Martin Brown
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Martin Brown
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enus

Yeah, it's amazing how life can fight against the odds sometimes. There is a planet in this solar system with over 2/3rds of the surface covered with a highly corrosive liquid that exists in all three phases so that it is im possible to escape and yet life abounds on the surface, in the air, in the depths of the waters. There is nearly no place where life is not found.

Amazing!

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  Rick C. 

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Reply to
Ricketty C

I haven't used my soldering iron for a couple of weeks, been doing firmware. I have a bit cleaner which is a small container with what looks like compacted solder powder presumably with some sort of flux. It's lead free.

Today, I see it's covered in fungi, like miniature mushrooms, up to about 4mm diameter, mostly smooth but some looking like miniature cauliflowers.

I'm hoping it's a serendipitous discovery of a Covid-19 cure which will make me rich. Hopefully it will instil herd mentality like Mr Trump is touting, but how to test it?

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Cheers 
Clive
Reply to
Clive Arthur

venus

A number of years ago I read about then Soviet plan to seed chlorella algae to Venus with one of the probes. The algae are singe cell and small, and would float in the CO2 rich atmosphere. The idea was that chlorella would perhaps survive, convert over the time CO2 into O2, thus reducing the CO2 concentration, which would reduce the temperature and would make the Venusian atmosphere O2 rich, perhaps breathable. With the gravitation almost as strong as that of the earth, perhaps Venus could be even made habitable. Though, if I remember, the magnetic shield from solar winds does not work on Venus.

The moral is that the Soviets did perhaps send chlorella to Venus, but kept it a secret. Or, perhaps, that some subversive scientist did secretly pack a chlorella filled tube in the probe.

Reply to
Judges1318

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