The Planet

THEY FOUND SIGNS OF LIFE ON VENUS!!!!!

Y'ALL!!!!!!

Here's an overview news post from MIT which goes into the science and stuff https://news.mit.edu/2020/life-venus-phosphine-0914 (I only skimmed it to see if it was talking about the findings or full of fluff, I haven't read it in detail)

If you also don't wanna read a whole science news post, here's the gist of the deal:

There are several markers that scientists have put together when studying exoplanets (that's planets outside of the Solar System) as indications of possible extraterrestrial life. One of these markers is phosphine, a chemical compound that the only known possible way for it to be created is as a byproduct of some form of life. They have now discovered that there is in fact phosphine on Venus.

The upshot of this is, there are three possible outcomes.

One: (the least interesting downer option) they didn't verify their data properly and it's a false positive.

Two: THERE'S LIFE ON VENUS

Three: There isn't life on Venus, but there IS a previously completely unknown chemical or physical mechanism producing this phosphine for us to discover.

An interesting side-effect of this discovery is that it gives us an unexpectedly close-to-home test case for the use of phosphine as a marker of life in studying exoplanets.

*ears perk up loudly*

(don't ask me how)

Really?!?! OMG that's awesome.

Wow, of all the locations in the solar system I'm pretty sure Venus would have been well down my list of places I'd expect them to find signs. *ponders* Then again, on Earth we have life in some pretty extreme environments.

LilFluff wrote: ↑

Mon 14 Sep, 2020, 4:38 pm

Wow, of all the locations in the solar system I'm pretty sure Venus would have been well down my list of places I'd expect them to find signs. *ponders* Then again, on Earth we have life in some pretty extreme environments.

Venus has actually been on the top of a lot of people's lists for finding life for decades! It might not have the go-to requirement of liquid water floating around, but it's got lots of organics and an atmosphere and a lithosphere - and checking off those three boxes puts it above the vast majority of other planetary bodies or their satellites in this star system.

Mostly, it's historically been really tough to learn anything about what's down on the surface of Venus because of the thick atmosphere. It's hard to see through and we can't really land stuff.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaa this is so cool!!!!

Though why can't we land anything on Venus? Is it because we haven't been able to get an idea of what the terrain is yet to design a thing, or is it that nothing would make it through the atmosphere with its equipment intact? Or some other reason?

katrani wrote: ↑

Wed 16 Sep, 2020, 1:25 am

Aaaaaaaaaaaaa this is so cool!!!!

Though why can't we land anything on Venus? Is it because we haven't been able to get an idea of what the terrain is yet to design a thing, or is it that nothing would make it through the atmosphere with its equipment intact? Or some other reason?

I know way more about the difficulties of landing on Mars than on Venus but I'm pretty sure that it's the intense heat and thick atmosphere that are the main issues. In fact, I looked it up, and there have been things landed on Venus. Russia launched a series of probes back in the '60s and '70s.

From a quick glance at that page, as I suspected, the primary limiting factor was the heat; the probes generally stopped working within a couple hours, which definitely limits the kind of data you can get. I think those missions are why we finally got a topographical map of the Venusian surface.

But you can't do stuff like Curiosity or Phoenix where you park something down and go explore and do chemical or geological tests on the terrain and atmosphere for an extended period of time, not without coming up with something that can withstand the ridiculously hot surface temperatures.

I am holding out for cloud-dwelling Venarians. But the sci-fi I read as a kid spoilt me.

LynKit wrote: ↑

Wed 16 Sep, 2020, 2:27 pm

I am holding out for cloud-dwelling Venarians. But the sci-fi I read as a kid spoilt me.

Well, the Fen Space shared universe does have cloud cities for Venus (primary home of the Senshi or magical girl faction of the setting). As even in a universe with a substance literally called Handwavium exploring the surface is extremely difficult.

I'll have to see if I can find links again, but I seem to recall that mechanical computing is being explored for future surface probes. The idea being to land things made from very high temperature resistant materials which would then operate as more or less clockwork devices that would 'transmit' results to an orbiter by modifying the shape and orientation of a radar reflector.

LilFluff wrote: ↑

Wed 16 Sep, 2020, 6:26 pm

I'll have to see if I can find links again, but I seem to recall that mechanical computing is being explored for future surface probes. The idea being to land things made from very high temperature resistant materials which would then operate as more or less clockwork devices that would 'transmit' results to an orbiter by modifying the shape and orientation of a radar reflector.

this is an extremely cool idea. reminds me of the solid-state plastic sensors that a team from UW was working on: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-ne ... via-wi-fi/ (although obviously plastic would *not* be viable in this case )

personally i'm a cynic, so i'm inclined to believe there's a non-life explanation (some previously unknown chemistry), but the idea that there could be something lifelike *next door* to us is pretty exciting.