NASASpaceFlight.com Forum
Robotic Spacecraft (Astronomy, Planetary, Earth, Solar/Heliophysics) => Space Science Coverage => Topic started by: FutureSpaceTourist on 09/14/2020 01:05 pm
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Live stream of RAS press conference at 15:00 UTC today:
https://youtu.be/y1u-jlf_Olo
Please wait until the announcement before posting updates & discussing in this thread.
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For those with access to the BBC:
https://twitter.com/bbcstargazing/status/1304010713195839493
Something really exciting is happening this month on #skyatnight, we've got a Special Report! Watch this teaser and tune in this MONDAY, 14th September at 22.30 on @BBCFOUR
https://twitter.com/chrislintott/status/1305401374222491650
And if I can add - please please please watch our show tonight. #skyatnight was trusted and able at short notice to make an extraordinary, in depth half hour report that will go beyond headlines. If you want more of that on the BBC, please watch.
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Related tweet:
You may have heard a rumour that we're announcing something big this afternoon - well of course we want you to be the first to know what's going on so stayed tuned here. At 4 pm [BST] [11 am EST] this video will go live and we'll also be live-streaming our press conference.
https://twitter.com/RoyalAstroSoc/status/1305454796225351682
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Not directly related but good context.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.05224
https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2017.1783
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Recent related paper:
https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2020.2244
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Not to ruin the story, but if the rumors on Twitter are correct then this is a huge deal.
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(spoofing Mark Watney famous quote)
"In your face, planet Mars !" (and Enceladus. And Europa.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphine
:-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X
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Announcement starting.
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The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array in Chile independently detected the presence of phosphine in Venus's atmosphere (about 20 ppb) and is a possible indicator of extraterrestrial life.
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https://astronomynow.com/2020/09/14/possible-evidence-found-for-life-on-venus/
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Phosphine isn't something made abiologically on Earth, only in a lab or by life. Probably wasn't made by photochemistry. Volcanoes could produce tiny traces of phosphine, but at a smaller quantity than observded. Lightning and meteorites would also fall short by a factor of millions as an explanation. Two possibilities: some completely unknown, exotic chemistry in the clouds of Venus, or life.
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Related ESOCast on this announcement:
https://youtu.be/g_GO_2Avk04
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Annoyingly I missed the part where they said it couldn't be made photochemically, anyone know what he said?
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First questions (I haven't read the press release): 1) how much above the signal to noise level is the detection and 2) have the measurements persisted over time?
I remember the telescopic detection of methane on Mars. Subsequent missions have found a story, not a clear one, but not one that I believe strongly backs the original telescopic observations.
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Phosphine isn't something made abiologically on Earth, only in a lab or by life. Probably wasn't made by photochemistry. Volcanoes could produce tiny traces of phosphine, but at a smaller quantity than observded. Lightning and meteorites would also fall short by a factor of millions as an explanation. Two possibilities: some completely unknown, exotic chemistry in the clouds of Venus, or life.
Is there a clear distinction between life and "exotic chemistry"? Life would just be a subset of exotic chemistry.
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Phosphine isn't something made abiologically on Earth, only in a lab or by life. Probably wasn't made by photochemistry. Volcanoes could produce tiny traces of phosphine, but at a smaller quantity than observded. Lightning and meteorites would also fall short by a factor of millions as an explanation. Two possibilities: some completely unknown, exotic chemistry in the clouds of Venus, or life.
Is there a clear distinction between life and "exotic chemistry"?
We don't know enough about how life forms to make that distinction.
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The Paper (it's open access now).
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-020-1174-4
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Annoyingly I missed the part where they said it couldn't be made photochemically, anyone know what he said?
That seems to be the last page of the paper, Fig 10 extended, "too low production rates by 4 to 5 magnitudes"
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A strong note of caution over this result.
Still, John Carpenter, an ALMA observatory scientist, is skeptical that the phosphine observations themselves are real. The signal is faint, and the team needed to perform an extensive amount of processing to pull it from the data returned by the telescopes. That processing, he says, may have returned an artificial signal at the same frequency as phosphine. He also notes that the standard for remote molecular identification involves detecting multiple fingerprints for the same molecule, which show up at different frequencies on the electromagnetic spectrum. That’s something that the team has not yet done with phosphine.
“They took the right steps to verify the signal, but I’m still not convinced that this is real,” Carpenter says. “If it’s real, it’s a very cool result, but it needs follow-up to make it really convincing.”
https://api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/amp/science/2020/09/possible-sign-of-life-found-on-venus-phosphine-gas
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Cool Worlds:
https://youtu.be/CNLsgd_NzWk
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https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1305521729662529536.html
A team led by @jgreaves6 have found what might be signs of life high in Venus' atmosphere. They have detected phospine, a gas which on Earth is produced only by life, in quantities they say are too large to be produced any other way. (1/17)
The discovery was made by using sub-mm (microwave) telescopes @eao_jcmt and @almaobs; phosphine is detected roughly 50km above the surface; parts of the atmosphere have temperature and pressure similar to sea level on Earth (2/17)
The phosphine exists at about 20 parts per billion, which doesn't sound much but which the team's modelling says is ten thousand times more than can be produced by volcanic activity or atmospheric chemistry. Their conclusion - this could be life. (3/17)
Is this real? Firstly, I'm told there has been much skepticism, including from journal referees, about the detection. JCMT and Alma were not made to look at things as bright as Venus and this is a difficult observation. (4/17)
However, we have detections from two seperate telescopes, and the team who led the data reduction - @jgreaves6 and Anita Richards at @UoMPhysics - know JCMT and Alma very well. I'd bet the detection is real. (5/17)
(Side note - @PlanetaryColin reminded me yesterday that the Russian Vega descent probes found - confusingly - that the lower clouds of Venus had lots of Phosphorus. They didn't test its form, and people assumed it would be phosphoric acid, not phosphine) (6/17)
Is phospine a sign of life? It's only produced by life - in strange places like penguin guts - on Earth, and though its seen in the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn there its created by pressure-driven chemistry that can't be happening on Venus. (7/17)
The team - particularly William Bains, along with Helen Fraser at the OU and others - have built a model that tries to keep track of the many chemical reactions that might produce phospine. They can't get it to account for what's seen. (8/17)
The details of that model are in a second paper which has not yet been accepted by the journal, and it will be heavily scrutinised when it comes out! There are two possibilities. Either the team have missed something obvious or made a mistake... (9/17)
..Or studying the chemistry of Venus' atmosphere just became a very hot topic. Reactions in a sulphuric acid rich environment are, I suspect, not well understood. It will be fascinating to watch what happens. My bet is on chemistry (#itsneveraliens) but who knows! (10/17)
(Worth noting that my go-to expert on solar system chemistry @PlanetDr is highly skeptical, and posted this earlier, which is wise:) (11/17)
If it is life, it must be very unusual life. There are microorganisms adapted to very acidic environments on Earth, but nothing like this. There are also ideas about how a life cycle could work, published by 's team: discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/h… (12/17)
If it is life, then the prospects of life being widespread in the cosmos increases rapidly. If life can evolve and survive on Venus, I suspect we should expect it in a much wider range of environments than previously thought. (13/17)
So what's next? I'm sure there will be repeated observations. Understanding if the detection is real, and whether the amount of phospine changes with time will be crucial. (14/17)
What about spacecraft? None of the planned orbiters will have instruments which will help. Proposed entry probes (American DAVINCI+, Russian Venera-D) will measure the composition but will plunge through the atmopshere fast. (15/17)
What's needed is something like the proposed Venus Flagship Mission which would have a balloon floating in the atmosphere, capable of looking for biomolecules. Balloning on Venus (though probably in the 2030s)! vfm.jpl.nasa.gov (16/17).
So there's much work to do to understand what this result means, but it's fascinating. If you're in the UK, you can hear the full story from @jgreaves6 and her team on #skyatnight, BBC4, 10.30pm tonight (17/17)
One final thing - I've been trying to think how this compares to other moments. I think what's different here is that the team went looking for phospine in order to search for life - and found it. That's a remarkable result whichever way you look at it (18/17)
(A certain vintage of British astronomer will be pleased to know that one version of the story of how this discovery came about features conversations in Uncle Billy's in Hilo). (19/17)
https://twitter.com/chrislintott/status/1305521729662529536
https://twitter.com/chrislintott/status/1305521841545637888
https://twitter.com/chrislintott/status/1305521961888604160
https://twitter.com/chrislintott/status/1305522111704969222
https://twitter.com/chrislintott/status/1305522230944768000
https://twitter.com/chrislintott/status/1305522350713118720
https://twitter.com/chrislintott/status/1305522475002982400
https://twitter.com/chrislintott/status/1305522594721026050
https://twitter.com/chrislintott/status/1305522690468581378
https://twitter.com/chrislintott/status/1305522830843539457
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Expect to see a flood of skepticism from astronomers and planetary scientists. That's very good, because it shows the scientific method in work. If the evidence still stands in a few years, we may see a mission to Venus on the table.
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Well it’s not so much outright scepticism I’ve seen so far but a great deal of caution. But I think this points out the importance of in situ studies through missions to the planet.
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A lot of "we don't knows" in that presser. Champagne back in cellar for now. On the one hand, they say phosphine can be produced by life on Earth, but then that life couldn't possibly survive on Venus.
If finding extraterrestrial life is the peak, we are still in the foothills of a discovery.
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A strong note of caution over this result.
Still, John Carpenter, an ALMA observatory scientist, is skeptical that the phosphine observations themselves are real. The signal is faint, and the team needed to perform an extensive amount of processing to pull it from the data returned by the telescopes. That processing, he says, may have returned an artificial signal at the same frequency as phosphine. He also notes that the standard for remote molecular identification involves detecting multiple fingerprints for the same molecule, which show up at different frequencies on the electromagnetic spectrum. That’s something that the team has not yet done with phosphine.
“They took the right steps to verify the signal, but I’m still not convinced that this is real,” Carpenter says. “If it’s real, it’s a very cool result, but it needs follow-up to make it really convincing.”
https://api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/amp/science/2020/09/possible-sign-of-life-found-on-venus-phosphine-gas
It's quite unusual that a staff scientist at an observatory that was used in the detection is so openly sceptical. He should certainly know ins and outs of ALMA data reduction.
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A lot of "we don't knows" in that presser. Champagne back in cellar for now. On the one hand, they say phosphine can be produced by life on Earth, but then that life couldn't possibly survive on Venus.
If finding extraterrestrial life is the peak, we are still in the foothills of a discovery.
Not sure where you get the idea that life couldn’t possibly exist on Venus, that might be true of its surface now. But that wasn’t the case up until 750 million years ago, and it isn’t true possibly of the atmosphere today.
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A strong note of caution over this result.
Still, John Carpenter, an ALMA observatory scientist, is skeptical that the phosphine observations themselves are real. The signal is faint, and the team needed to perform an extensive amount of processing to pull it from the data returned by the telescopes. That processing, he says, may have returned an artificial signal at the same frequency as phosphine. He also notes that the standard for remote molecular identification involves detecting multiple fingerprints for the same molecule, which show up at different frequencies on the electromagnetic spectrum. That’s something that the team has not yet done with phosphine.
“They took the right steps to verify the signal, but I’m still not convinced that this is real,” Carpenter says. “If it’s real, it’s a very cool result, but it needs follow-up to make it really convincing.”
https://api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/amp/science/2020/09/possible-sign-of-life-found-on-venus-phosphine-gas
It's quite unusual that a staff scientist at an observatory that was used in the detection is so openly sceptical. He should certainly know ins and outs of ALMA data reduction.
I thought it was odd. Maybe he didn’t agree with the paper going out now?
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The Planetary Society as ever speak a lot of sense.
https://www.planetary.org/articles/venus-phosphine-biosignature
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A lot of "we don't knows" in that presser. Champagne back in cellar for now. On the one hand, they say phosphine can be produced by life on Earth, but then that life couldn't possibly survive on Venus.
If finding extraterrestrial life is the peak, we are still in the foothills of a discovery.
Not sure where you get the idea that life couldn’t possibly exist on Venus, that might be true of its surface now. But that wasn’t the case up until 750 million years ago, and it isn’t true possibly of the atmosphere today.
You misunderstand, they said that carbon-based life that exists on Earth *now*, could not exist on Venus *now* because it would be ripped apart by sulphuric acid etc. Earth life and Venus life would have to have evolved along completely different metabolic pathways for venus-life to exist *now*.
Therefore, the assumption that because current Earth based life can produce phosphine, this is also true for Venus, does not hold since Venus life cannot be similar to Earth life.
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A lot of "we don't knows" in that presser. Champagne back in cellar for now. On the one hand, they say phosphine can be produced by life on Earth, but then that life couldn't possibly survive on Venus.
If finding extraterrestrial life is the peak, we are still in the foothills of a discovery.
Not sure where you get the idea that life couldn’t possibly exist on Venus, that might be true of its surface now. But that wasn’t the case up until 750 million years ago, and it isn’t true possibly of the atmosphere today.
You misunderstand, they said that carbon-based life that exists on Earth *now*, could not exist on Venus *now* because it would be ripped apart by sulphuric acid etc. Earth life and Venus life would have to have evolved along completely different metabolic pathways for venus-life to exist *now*.
Therefore, the assumption that because current Earth based life can produce phosphine, this is also true for Venus, does not hold since Venus life cannot be similar to Earth life.
The point is the metabolic pathways may be similar, not necessarily everything else about these organisms. The suggestion (and this seems really not well understood right now) is that phosphine production is a feature amongst some anaerobes on Earth. The claim is the same anaerobic pathway (which again we don't know much about) may be used on Venus.
This all hinges on three things right now. Have they definitely detected phosphine? What is the nature of Phosphine biochemistry? Can we definitely rule out geo-/photochemistry? I feel these all need much better answers than we have now.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IIj3e5BFp0
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Ok this was funny,
https://twitter.com/aussiastronomer/status/1305533732351344642
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I only have one question: Why are the penguins and badgers making phosphine? I.E. what in their diet or metabolism causes phosphine to be present in their systems?
Start there, and look for commonality with the venusean environment.
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I only have one question: Why are the penguins and badgers making phosphine? I.E. what in their diet or metabolism causes phosphine to be present in their systems?
Start there, and look for commonality with the venusean environment.
They aren't, their gut microbiota do.
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This news is covered on tonight’s edition of The Sky at Night 22:30 UK time on BBC Four.
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Sooo.... do we already have a tread speculating on a sample return mission? Just sayin'...
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Interesting thread by Professor Jason Wright starting on the link below. It should be noted as he says he hasn’t read the paper itself yet.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Astro_Wright/status/1305563683163189249
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I'm surprised there's not more interest in this. Skepticism is warranted, but this is probably the strongest signal for extraterrestrial life we've ever had. Granted, the bar there was quite low, but still...
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https://youtu.be/GWj85r02Oiw
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I'm surprised there's not more interest in this. Skepticism is warranted, but this is probably the strongest signal for extraterrestrial life we've ever had. Granted, the bar there was quite low, but still...
I think people have been burnt once to often in the past. Looking at you Martian meteorite.
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https://twitter.com/chrisenorth/status/1305541539972763650
If you want more details, then the research paper is at https://nature.com/articles/s41550-020-1174-4… (which *should* be freely available). It will be on arXiv tonight.
There's an associated paper which is going through the publication process at …https://ef138b75-3870-4e60-a95e-a70887b14bfb.filesusr.com/ugd/874d8b_0c6a7490550b475bb03162e68b12f2d2.pdf… (also to be on arxiv later)
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I'm surprised there's not more interest in this. Skepticism is warranted, but this is probably the strongest signal for extraterrestrial life we've ever had. Granted, the bar there was quite low, but still...
I think people have been burnt once to often in the past. Looking at you Martian meteorite.
Not only that, but there's two possibilities; life or unknown abiotic chemistry. Since we know little about the atmosphere of Venus, unknown abiotic chemistry is the best bet.
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I'm surprised there's not more interest in this. Skepticism is warranted, but this is probably the strongest signal for extraterrestrial life we've ever had. Granted, the bar there was quite low, but still...
I think people have been burnt once to often in the past. Looking at you Martian meteorite.
Not only that, but there's two possibilities; life or unknown abiotic chemistry. Since we know little about the atmosphere of Venus, unknown abiotic chemistry is the best bet.
I think you’re over-stating a little our ignorance of the Venusian atmosphere.
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Reading the research paper, a thought has come to mind:
PH3 in our atmosphere only exists on the ppt range (parts per trillion), and that's with our incredibly vast biosphere. So how is it that Venus, a planet vastly more inhospitable for life, has PH3 in the ppb range (parts per billion)? If there's life, it must be a huge ecosystem to produce this.
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This research should give RL Venus mission something to target. Last I heard mission was still deciding on payload.
Would be irionic that cheapest interplanetary mission ever is first to detect live on Venus.
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Reading the research paper, a thought has come to mind:
PH3 in our atmosphere only exists on the ppt range (parts per trillion), and that's with our incredibly vast biosphere. So how is it that Venus, a planet vastly more inhospitable for life, has PH3 in the ppb range (parts per billion)? If there's life, it must be a huge ecosystem to produce this.
Not necessarily. If the biochemistry that produces PH3 on Venus is fundamental to whatever life there might be there, it might be more apt to compare the concentration of PH3 on Venus to, say, Oxygen or CO2 on Earth. Pulling numbers out of thin air, maybe earth has only one in 100,000,000 organisms producing PH3 while on Venus it is close to 100%.
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Reading the research paper, a thought has come to mind:
PH3 in our atmosphere only exists on the ppt range (parts per trillion), and that's with our incredibly vast biosphere. So how is it that Venus, a planet vastly more inhospitable for life, has PH3 in the ppb range (parts per billion)? If there's life, it must be a huge ecosystem to produce this.
You can get ppb concentrations in certain scenarios.
Measurements of phosphine concentrations in the Earth's atmosphere. Study number shown in x-axis (references below) and y-axis showing the span of locally measured concentration of gaseous PH3 in units of ng/m 3 , with maximum values of 600.2 and 1259 ng/m 3 (corresponding to concentrations ranging between ppq to ppb). Green bars: marshlands and paddy fields. Black bars -industrial environments. Red bar -Namibia (rural environment). White bars -arctic and Antarctic environments. Yellow bars -Upper troposphere. Blue bars -oceanic samples (coastal and open ocean. References for studies shown: 1) (Han et al. 2011a) 2) (Han et al. 2000) 3) (Niu et al. 2013) 4) (Glindemann et al. 1996a) 5) (Zhang et al. 2010) 6) (Glindemann et al. 1996a) 7) (Zhu et al. 2007a; Zhu et al. 2007b) 8) (Zhang et al. 2010) 9,10) (Glindemann et al. 2003) 11) (Li et al. 2009) 12) (Zhu et al. 2007a; Zhu et al. 2007b) 13) (Gassmann et al. 1996) 14) (Glindemann et al. 2003) 15) (Geng et al. 2005; Han et al. 2011b) 16) (Hong et al. 2010a). We do not include measurements of "Matrix-Bound Phosphine" (material that releases PH3 when
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Measurements-of-phosphine-concentrations-in-the-Earths-atmosphere-Study-number-shown-in_fig1_336510631
It looks like the highest concentrations were found in industrial environments, closely followed by arctic environments. There doesn't seem to be much correlation between biological mass density and phosphine concentration (in fact, the opposite).
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Scott Manley:
https://youtu.be/GWj85r02Oiw
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I'm surprised there's not more interest in this. Skepticism is warranted, but this is probably the strongest signal for extraterrestrial life we've ever had. Granted, the bar there was quite low, but still...
It's front page on CNN and The Atlantic right now, and it's the headline on Huffington Post.
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Cross-posting this.
https://twitter.com/JimBridenstine/status/1305598182571810822
Life on Venus? The discovery of phosphine, a byproduct of anaerobic biology, is the most significant development yet in building the case for life off Earth. About 10 years ago NASA discovered microbial life at 120,000ft in Earth’s upper atmosphere. It’s time to prioritize Venus.
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Reading the research paper, a thought has come to mind:
PH3 in our atmosphere only exists on the ppt range (parts per trillion), and that's with our incredibly vast biosphere. So how is it that Venus, a planet vastly more inhospitable for life, has PH3 in the ppb range (parts per billion)? If there's life, it must be a huge ecosystem to produce this.
Only anaerobic bacteria produce PH3, which are a small fraction of the Earth's biosphere. Who knows what fraction they might be of any potential Venusian biosphere?
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Randall Munroe has his commentary:
https://xkcd.com/2359/
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Just because a lot of energy is needed to make these compounds. Doesn't mean life made them. You need a lot more data than that to get me to start believing it.
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Prof Sara Seager has been talking to @rocketlab - they would have a spacecraft that is about 15 kg so you're payload would have to be about 3 kg - quite a challenge, but exciting that they are thinking about it. #VenusNews
https://twitter.com/RoyalAstroSoc/status/1305536726425833474
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Quotes from the paper:
"PH3 could originate from unknown photochemistry or geochemistry, or, by analogy with biological production of PH3 on Earth, from the presence of life.
Even if confirmed, we emphasize that the detection of PH3 is not robust evidence for life, only for anomalous and unexplained chemistry."
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Fascinating discovery! Yes its true there could be an unknown source for the detection that doesn't involve life, but it certainly makes a compelling argument that it could be!
What I love about this discovery is that is started with how would you look for life signatures on distant planets. They then applied this methodology to Venus and got very unexpected results! Science in action, love it!
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Tbf I think the possibility of it indicating life was a bit oversold, I mean they spent half the conference talking about life when they said they weren't claiming it was proof of life. Of course Venus researchers obviously have an interest in making audacious claims to try (and apparently succeed in) getting attention.
That said, if we ever do find life elsewhere I strongly suspect it won't be from a clearcut "eureka" moment, as Chris Lintott alluded to on SaN, but something initially contentious such as this discovery. On balance it probably isn't life, there's just so many unknowns, but finding the real thing will likely look just the same so who knows.
Regardless, there is a big effort to understand potential biosignatures in preparation for studying the atmospheres of exoplanets. At some point we will have come across this issue of detecting a biosignature but not being quite sure what it means, in fact we did with methane on Mars. Whatever we learn about phosphine will be important going forward in the search for life elsewhere.
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I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up in a discussion of "what is life".
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Scientist: "We may have found traces of a weird chemical on Venus, but we need to do lots of follow-up observations to make sure we really saw what we think we saw. This chemical can formed by life here on Earth, but we know it also forms without life on Jupiter and Saturn."
Media: "ERMAGERD THERE'S EVIDENCE OF LIFE ON VENUS"
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Scientist: "We may have found traces of a weird chemical on Venus, but we need to do lots of follow-up observations to make sure we really saw what we think we saw. This chemical can formed by life here on Earth, but we know it also forms without life on Jupiter and Saturn."
Media: "ERMAGERD THERE'S EVIDENCE OF LIFE ON VENUS"
Not to defend the media here, but that's not really what the scientists were saying either. They really said it's either some unknown process that will require more research or follow-up, or it's life.
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https://twitter.com/chrisg_nsf/status/1305601059763740672
So there's #phosphine in #Venus's atmosphere. Life?
Eh, maybe. But certainly NOT the first possible answer. What does it mean, how did scientists find it, what's complicating our understanding of what this find means, & what are the next steps?
ARTICLE:
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/09/phosphine-venusian-discovery/
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Prof Sara Seager has been talking to @rocketlab - they would have a spacecraft that is about 15 kg so you're payload would have to be about 3 kg - quite a challenge, but exciting that they are thinking about it. #VenusNews
https://twitter.com/RoyalAstroSoc/status/1305536726425833474
Obvious question at this point - for something of this magnitude, why spend $7m on an Electron to get a very limited capability 3kg payload to Venus, when for maybe $40m-$50m a reusable F9 could deliver a payload orders of magnitude larger and more capable. I’d imagine funding for such a mission would be a trivial challenge.
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The paper claims an assured signal at 15 sigma, but they also mention abiotic confounds.
Single-line millimetre-waveband spectral detections (quality up to ~15σ) from the JCMT and ALMA telescopes have no other plausible identification. Atmospheric PH3 at ~20 ppb abundance is inferred. The presence of PH3 is unexplained after exhaustive study of steady-state chemistry and photochemical pathways, with no currently known abiotic production routes in Venus’s atmosphere, clouds, surface and subsurface, or from lightning, volcanic or meteoritic delivery. PH3 could originate from unknown photochemistry or geochemistry, or, by analogy with biological production of PH3 on Earth, from the presence of life.
[“Phosphine gas in the cloud decks of Venus”, Nature Astronomy].
I note that phosphine is regularly produced everywhere there is fosfor and heat, so volcanism and meteorites are common suspects [ https://www.pnas.org/content/105/3/853 ]. “Phosphine as a Biosignature Gas in Exoplanet Atmospheres”, arxiv 1910.05224, Sousa-Silva et al. [Sousa-Siilva is co-author on the Venus paper], notes that it is seen in stars and gas giant atmospheres. It puts the thermodynamic condition for rocky planets to have extensive abiotic phosphine when atmospheres is > 800 K and > 0.1 bar.
Venus is at a mean surface temperature of > 735 K and a surface pressure of 92 bar, and a recent paper claims signs have extensive, likely active, volcano caldera subduction activity.
In 2008 and 2009, the first direct evidence for ongoing volcanism was observed by Venus Express, in the form of four transient localized infrared hot spots within the rift zone Ganis Chasma,[47][n 1] near the shield volcano Maat Mons. Three of the spots were observed in more than one successive orbit. These spots are thought to represent lava freshly released by volcanic eruptions.[48][49] The actual temperatures are not known, because the size of the hot spots could not be measured, but are likely to have been in the 800–1,100 K (527–827 °C; 980–1,520 °F) range, relative to a normal temperature of 740 K (467 °C; 872 °F).[50]
[Wikipedia]
The case of Venus habitability is an old one. If Venus had an early ocean - and in modern 3D models it could have one up to 4 Gyrs after planet accretion - life could get started.
The atmosphere layers that have the same temperature and pressure as Earth surface is where an EM absorber was found over a century ago(first seen as hazes). Modeling it results in a preference for cell sized particles, and no one know what it is.
The problem seems to be that the layer is ~80 % sulphuric acid, and Earth life can stand < 5 %. The opportunity is that the phosphine production rates seems to be 5 order of magnitudes larger than known abiotic processes can produce, but 1 order of magnitude less than then life can produce on Earth [ https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54133538 ].
I think everyone agree that finding extinct or extant life on other planets within the system is a matter of sample return. Current methods of eliminating confounds in prokaryotes or such fossils demand microscale analysis [even for stromatolites and MISS].
And outside the system it will come down to either statistics or observing an atmosphere that is in too much thermodynamic imbalance to be caused by anything else (if one can eliminate volcanism and other such confounds).
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Is there a clear distinction between life and "exotic chemistry"? Life would just be a subset of exotic chemistry.
Life is organic chemistry, which is ubiquitous from star atmospheres and planets to interstellar gas. A recent paper has, IIRC, claimed carbon was the first volatile to settle out in our protoplanetary disk.
What life "is" is a fruitless question, but the evolutionary process of life happens in populations of organisms [so no single organism is "life" by itself]. We have had a weak handle on the evolution of life from geological to biological systems for a few years now [ https://www.nature.com/articles/nmicrobiol2016116 ; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6152910/pdf/emss-78644.pdf ] - it evolved and diversified so quickly that it concur with the disk chemistry that non-exotic processes are involved.
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Prof Sara Seager has been talking to @rocketlab - they would have a spacecraft that is about 15 kg so you're payload would have to be about 3 kg - quite a challenge, but exciting that they are thinking about it. #VenusNews
https://twitter.com/RoyalAstroSoc/status/1305536726425833474
Obvious question at this point - for something of this magnitude, why spend $7m on an Electron to get a very limited capability 3kg payload to Venus, when for maybe $40m-$50m a reusable F9 could deliver a payload orders of magnitude larger and more capable. I’d imagine funding for such a mission would be a trivial challenge.
RL mission would be about $20m all up including LV. If NASA are spending $50m on F9R it will endup being $+200m mission, lot more capable but also lot more expensive. Has to go through review process and justify it's self against other missions competing for same funding.
Results of RL could help decide if more capable high cost mission is worth doing.
From what Peter Beck has been tweeting RL mission will be mostly privately funded.
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I'm surprised there's not more interest in this. Skepticism is warranted, but this is probably the strongest signal for extraterrestrial life we've ever had. Granted, the bar there was quite low, but still...
The strongest signal I know of is the putative MISS (bacterial mat fossil imprints) that a bacterial fossil expert found some evidence of in the Gale crater mudstones [ https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2014.1218 ] - which drill samples later showed organics that could be biotic (or abiotic) produced. The find ticked off many of the initial points in the MISS detection signature list, but as always prokaryote fossils needs microanalysis so we need to hope for something similar for the Jezero Crater sample return.
[Astrobiological detection of biosignatures in other systems are based on statistics or signs of an atmosphere thermodynamic imbalance that can only be explained by a biosphere. The only prokaryote associated fossil I know of where a weak magnification image suffice is prokaryotic acid tunneling in volcanic glasses - there is no abiotic confound. Even large fossil stromatolites needs microanalysis.]
I don't know why that one of the several historically suggested biosignatures didn't get more press. It was presented at a conference and later published in peer review [in Astrobiology. But it was a lone scientist and while no one could find any problems with the candidate (that I know of) there was no effort for a dedicated sample return either.
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Prof Sara Seager has been talking to @rocketlab - they would have a spacecraft that is about 15 kg so you're payload would have to be about 3 kg - quite a challenge, but exciting that they are thinking about it. #VenusNews
https://twitter.com/RoyalAstroSoc/status/1305536726425833474
If they had a way of refueling their second stage and kick stage in LEO, they could probably increase that deliverable spacecraft size by 10-15x... (I haven't run the numbers on Electron/Photon specifically, but in a previous AAS paper we presented a few years back, we looked at the concept of refueling a Virgin Orbit LauncherOne class vehicle's upper stage and kick stage, and found you could get most of the LEO payload to a Venus or Mars trajectory).
[Note, this is only barely on topic, so might be better moved to or followed-up in a different thread]
[Note 2: Robotbeat created a separate thread for discussing the concept: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=51952]
~Jon
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The scientists behind this study have my respect
- they took great pains meticulously eliminating any alternate phosphine source
- they have two different observations with two different observatories
- they remained very cautious against the hype - they made clear that some unknown Venus chemistry, not life, could still play a trick and explain the results
Most of the criticism focuse on ALMA and JCMT inner limits for such research. The two observatories are not optimal for the job, basically.
A little search about phosphine on Earth.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&ei=GlZgX5P0Ho7Aa-fwtJAO&q=%22phosphine%22%22anaerobic%22%22biosphere%22+filetype%3Apdf&oq=%22phosphine%22%22anaerobic%22%22biosphere%22+filetype%3Apdf&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQA1DeXlimdGCPd2gAcAB4AIABcogBiAmSAQQxMC4zmAEAoAEBqgEHZ3dzLXdpesABAQ&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKEwiT6dfOu-rrAhUO4BoKHWc4DeIQ4dUDCAw&uact=5
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Folks,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_Venus
I was wondering - any chance data from some of these old missions could be reviewed again, in search of phosphine ? Any help there ?
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Tbf I think the possibility of it indicating life was a bit oversold, I mean they spent half the conference talking about life when they said they weren't claiming it was proof of life. Of course Venus researchers obviously have an interest in making audacious claims to try (and apparently succeed in) getting attention.
That said, if we ever do find life elsewhere I strongly suspect it won't be from a clearcut "eureka" moment, as Chris Lintott alluded to on SaN, but something initially contentious such as this discovery. On balance it probably isn't life, there's just so many unknowns, but finding the real thing will likely look just the same so who knows.
Regardless, there is a big effort to understand potential biosignatures in preparation for studying the atmospheres of exoplanets. At some point we will have come across this issue of detecting a biosignature but not being quite sure what it means, in fact we did with methane on Mars. Whatever we learn about phosphine will be important going forward in the search for life elsewhere.
I am not sure the justification for defaulting to saying it isn’t life is any more justified than saying it is life at this stage.
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Prof Sara Seager has been talking to @rocketlab - they would have a spacecraft that is about 15 kg so you're payload would have to be about 3 kg - quite a challenge, but exciting that they are thinking about it. #VenusNews
https://twitter.com/RoyalAstroSoc/status/1305536726425833474
Obvious question at this point - for something of this magnitude, why spend $7m on an Electron to get a very limited capability 3kg payload to Venus, when for maybe $40m-$50m a reusable F9 could deliver a payload orders of magnitude larger and more capable. I’d imagine funding for such a mission would be a trivial challenge.
Because there’s still a big difference between $7 million funding wise and $50 million. I’d think such a seemingly contentious discovery is more appropriately investigated by a lower cost mission. Especially as the total mission cost will be higher and the gap even wider.
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In terms of space missions, 7 or 50 million is peanuts. I think it makes sense to try to see what other Earth-based telescopes can find, but unless that throws up a showstopper, sending a mission quickly to verify phosphine seems eminently important and affordable. While that's happening, planning and designing a mission that can sample the atmosphere to capture and identify potential microbes also seems sensible.
Think of the billions that have been spent on Mars, none of which I would gainsay, investigating this and confirming it, is almost a rounding error in comparison.
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Not so long ago they said:
"If phosphine is detected from a rocky planet, it would be an unmistakable sign of extraterrestrial life."
https://news.mit.edu/2019/phosphine-aliens-stink-1218
Now we have detected it on the planet closest to Earth. I think there is reason to be excited, just a tiny bit.
;D
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You don't need high pressures to affix phosphine PH3. Lightning would do it in a low temperature, low pressure plasma reaction, and Venus has lots of lightning. I make NH3 and NO3 every day in a similar plasma reaction that replicates lightning strikes in the atmosphere.
You DO however, need a source of Phosphorus and Hydrogen. Venus's atmosphere has lots of phosphorus in the form of Phosphorous Anhydride P4O6, but next to no hydrogen.
Even if life is causing the reaction, the real question is where the hydrogen is coming from!?!
There is H lower in the Venusian atmosphere in the form of Sulfuric Acid H2SO4.
Also, the Vega probe found that the Phosphorous Anhydride P4O6 was mixing with the Sulfuric Acid and releasing SO2 and H2O (and probably H2O2).
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0019103589901681
So as long as the Sulfuric Acid is resupplied (I guess with underground sources of water released in combination with volcanic activity), there should be a water source in the upper atmosphere available to mix with the P4O6 to form PH3.
Life or lightning could be the catalyst, lightning being more likely, IMHO.
However, just to wildly speculate a little further, I wonder if Phosphorus could be taking the place of Nitrogen in a Venusian "nitrogen cycle" to feed airborne bacteria analogs. PH3 and NH3 are pretty close cousins...
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Not so long ago they said:
"If phosphine is detected from a rocky planet, it would be an unmistakable sign of extraterrestrial life."
https://news.mit.edu/2019/phosphine-aliens-stink-1218
Now we have detected it on the planet closest to Earth. I think there is reason to be excited, just a tiny bit.
The paper describes a theoretical result, the next step is a practical experiment to confirm it. As luck would have it, we have an opportunity right here on our doorstep. Science is an active process of learning.
If an abiotic cause for the phosphine on Venus is found, then that would disprove the paper's conclusion. It also calls into question the methodology used for determining bio-signature gases. OTOH, if biological cause is found, Nobel prizes await! This is all good science.
A tempered article on the subject :
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/09/15/dont-bet-on-aliens-phosphine-is-amazing-but-doesnt-mean-life-on-venus/#295fe8984fbc
This is one of the most exciting moments that occurs in a scientist’s life: we’ve discovered something unknown, and the conventional explanations we can think of cannot explain it. There is a relatively abundant molecule present in the atmosphere of Venus — phosphine (PH3) — and we don’t know where it comes from. To understand it, we’ll not only need newer, superior observations, but likely additional missions to explore and probe our nearest neighbor planet as never before. When it comes to the question of life on Venus, it’s the only way to find out.
But claiming that alien life is even a likely resolution to this conundrum is a wildly speculative idea at best, and simply wishful, unscientific thinking at worst. Our ability to ask big questions about life in the Universe is well ahead of the data we have access to at present, and while there’s nothing wrong with letting our imaginations run wild, it’s important not to place the majority of our resources in betting on the cosmic long-shots. We have a fascinating new mystery to solve right here in our own cosmic backyard. For anyone curious about the Universe as it actually is, that should be more than enough.
The Drake equation predicts that millions of planets may harbor life. But there are billions of planets. Therefore, we would expect to survey one million planets before finding life (a simplistic calculation, whatever the number, it's a LOT). We will get many false leads before a confirmation, "excitement fatigue" is likely to set in.
So yeah, I am 1 in 14 million excited, approximately the chances of winning the lottery - or finding extraterrestrial life.
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Looking ahead, while the detection of indoor and outdoor "Bioaerosol Detection" is not a new question, e.g., 1 (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262825510_Performance_of_Two_Fluorescence-Based_Real-Time_Bioaerosol_Detectors_BioScout_vs_UVAPS) or 2 (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/atmosphere/special_issues/bioaerosol_health_climate), it will be fun to design a portable, compact, Venus-bound device or devices that can quickly identify types of airborne microbes, virus, etc. I was wondering whether that type of bio sensor has been considered or studied for Mars et al at some point in the past? Any pointers?
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Two aspects to comment:
Several chemistry departments need a really good boost with funding and students interest.
This discovery should trigger a bit of well needed focus on all the experiments needed to look for other paths to produce phosphine, plus the research on what is exactly producing it inside living organisms on Earth.
Exobiology and exoplanets science has a new testbed. If you thing on Venus not as a planet but as a ‘solar system’, the discovery happened in the ‘habitable zone or band’ of the system. And the discovery was made using the methodologies or ideas to locate potential life in exoplanets.
I think, in itself, the research is impactful enough and deserve most of the accolades and interest it is getting. If it justify space missions even the better.
There should be instruments available or doable that produce a better detection. And not waiting years. In fact, it is likely there are interesting new proposals for observation time being written as we speak.
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Folks,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_Venus
I was wondering - any chance data from some of these old missions could be reviewed again, in search of phosphine ? Any help there ?
One of the Vega probes detected phosphorus in the Venusian atmosphere about 25km above the surface.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0019103589901681
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Many, many thanks for that. 8) That clever, old trick of reviewing past missions data, it always work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_program
What is really interesting there: it was those Vega probes that carried the (french) balloons. Didn't remembered however that they also had landers.
Venus balloons were the "pet peeves" of a french space scientist, Jacques Blamont. Who passed away, aged 93, last April. Sad he couldn't live some more weeks to see that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Blamont
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Two aspects to comment:
Several chemistry departments need a really good boost with funding and students interest.
This discovery should trigger a bit of well needed focus on all the experiments needed to look for other paths to produce phosphine, plus the research on what is exactly producing it inside living organisms on Earth.
Exobiology and exoplanets science has a new testbed. If you thing on Venus not as a planet but as a ‘solar system’, the discovery happened in the ‘habitable zone or band’ of the system. And the discovery was made using the methodologies or ideas to locate potential life in exoplanets.
I think, in itself, the research is impactful enough and deserve most of the accolades and interest it is getting. If it justify space missions even the better.
There should be instruments available or doable that produce a better detection. And not waiting years. In fact, it is likely there are interesting new proposals for observation time being written as we speak.
Always good to do a step back with a thought experiment. Let's say a civilization 100 light years away studies the solar system in search for signs of life. Let's assume they can resolve the dots of light from planets 2,3,4,5, i.e., Venus to Jupiter. They detect phosphine on planet #2, a possible biomarker, good. They detect free oxygen on #3, even better, something produces oxygen. They detect methane in the atmosphere on #4 and #5, plus phosphine on #5.
Question - How to decide what is the most "promising" life bearing planet? In case you missed it, the oxygen on #3 points to oxygen production, i.e., plants. Humans only consume oxygen and it is a different discussion on what they produce ;) At the moment, we just lack the data to extrapolate from spectrogram of an atmosphere to "some form of life or biology" but it makes for a fascinating field of study.
On an historical note, back in the 90s, Carl Sagan et al did the experiment on how to detect "Life on Earth" with a space probe, Galileo. The paper is A search for life on Earth from the Galileo spacecraft (https://www.nature.com/articles/365715a0) with some extra thoughts here (https://www.howitworksdaily.com/detecting-life-on-earth/) and a quote:
To confirm Sagan’s findings, they used a later flyby of the Moon in 1992. They used data from this flyby to confirm that the Moon indeed appeared lifeless. However, they ran into a problem with organic compounds called porphyrins, found in lunar soil. Although a possible biosignature, these were undoubtedly created by nothing to do with life at all.
Edit: typo
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More on Vega 2 descent module and phosphorus.
https://books.google.fr/books?id=b93lEgkPquoC&pg=PA430&dq=%22vega%22%22phosphorus%22%22venus%22&hl=fr&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjtibvkuOvrAhUJKBoKHY-eBZkQ6AEwAXoECAMQAg#v=onepage&q=%22vega%22%22phosphorus%22%22venus%22&f=false
Tantalizing... !
"some P-bearing substance" Google search: brings some results related to Vega 2.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=%22some+P-bearing+substance%22
And notably, that little gem from 1998 (see page 9 of the pdf, bottom left)
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Charles_Cockell/publication/259599881_Life_on_Venus/links/5a1b31600f7e9be37f9bea1b/Life-on-Venus.pdf
Note that, as mentionned upthread, these very results from Vega 2 have been used and reviewed by the team behind yesterday announcement.
Make sense: they are the one and only phosphorus detection, ever, inside Venus atmosphere.
Aparently the Vega 1 twin lander got a mishap during descent and did not brought measurements.
The Soviet scientist who reviewed the instrument results (among others) had the name Andreichikov. He got another paper in 1998.
https://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/LPSC98/pdf/1003.pdf
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Prof Sara Seager has been talking to @rocketlab - they would have a spacecraft that is about 15 kg so you're payload would have to be about 3 kg - quite a challenge, but exciting that they are thinking about it. #VenusNews
https://twitter.com/RoyalAstroSoc/status/1305536726425833474
Obvious question at this point - for something of this magnitude, why spend $7m on an Electron to get a very limited capability 3kg payload to Venus, when for maybe $40m-$50m a reusable F9 could deliver a payload orders of magnitude larger and more capable. I’d imagine funding for such a mission would be a trivial challenge.
Because there’s still a big difference between $7 million funding wise and $50 million. I’d think such a seemingly contentious discovery is more appropriately investigated by a lower cost mission. Especially as the total mission cost will be higher and the gap even wider.
Ever hear of rideshares? You could launch 1,400 kg for $7 million on an F9.
It's not that easy. You have to get a rideshare that actually would allow you to get to Venus. The orbital dynamics of using rideshares for interplanetary missions are sort of tricky. To avoid huge delta-V penalties, you have to leave from a plane that has the departure asymptote in it during the launch window. Which given that you're not the primary payload on such a mission, means that you could end up having to hang out in LEO or an HEO parking orbit for a *long* time (up to a year and a half depending on how unlucky you are with your rideshare launch date and deployment orbit). There are times and places for rideshares, and interplanetary missions are a poor choice for that (unless you're talking ridesharing on a launch already heading to your destination of interest).
~Jon
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Something speculative - and amusing: between 1990 and 1995 Galileo, on its way to Jupiter, made close flyby(s) of Venus.
We know there is phosphine inside Jupiter and Saturn atmosphere, since Voyager or even Pioneer. In their case, no chance for life: they can easily do it through chemical reactions.
Now imagine, if Galileo had picked phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus !! 8) The timing was not bad: Vega-2 results were published in 1987...
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Two aspects to comment:
Several chemistry departments need a really good boost with funding and students interest.
This discovery should trigger a bit of well needed focus on all the experiments needed to look for other paths to produce phosphine, plus the research on what is exactly producing it inside living organisms on Earth.
Breakthrough Initiatives are going to be funding Sara Seager's team to work on this more,
https://twitter.com/yurimilner/status/1305829264055562240
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Now imagine, if Galileo had picked phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus !! 8) The timing was not bad: Vega-2 results were published in 1987...
Agreed. I decided to read up at NTRS and TRS/JPL. There are many reports on Galileo, Venus but I keep running in paywalls and cover pages instead of the full reports. This is a general issue with NASA, NTRS and JPL these days :(
<rant>NASA, we, the science loving, tax paying citizens of the USA, are fed up that you claim to "have" these reports, and have "search results" and then just shows cover pages or point to paywalls at Nature, Science, AIAA, etc. We demand access to full results and reports paid by our money. </rant>
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Two aspects to comment:
Several chemistry departments need a really good boost with funding and students interest.
This discovery should trigger a bit of well needed focus on all the experiments needed to look for other paths to produce phosphine, plus the research on what is exactly producing it inside living organisms on Earth.
Breakthrough Initiatives are going to be funding Sara Seager's team to work on this more,
https://twitter.com/yurimilner/status/1305829264055562240
Now are the going to be funding Rocket Lab’s mission I wonder.
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We know there is phosphine inside Jupiter and Saturn atmosphere, since Voyager or even Pioneer. In their case, no chance for life: they can easily do it through chemical reactions.
Just a nit, it doesn’t necessarily follow that there is no chance for life because phosphine can be generated abiotically on the gas giants. Could be both...
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What if the Venera probe had bacteria on it that survived?
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Now imagine, if Galileo had picked phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus !! 8) The timing was not bad: Vega-2 results were published in 1987...
Agreed. I decided to read up at NTRS and TRS/JPL. There are many reports on Galileo, Venus but I keep running in paywalls and cover pages instead of the full reports. This is a general issue with NASA, NTRS and JPL these days :(
<rant>NASA, we, the science loving, tax paying citizens of the USA, are fed up that you claim to "have" these reports, and have "search results" and then just shows cover pages or point to paywalls at Nature, Science, AIAA, etc. We demand access to full results and reports paid by our money. </rant>
check your PM... (evil maniacal laugh)
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What if the Venera probe had bacteria on it that survived?
Any terrestrial microbes, even potential anaerobic extremophiles (for Earth standards) on Venera probe(s) would have zero chance of survival on Venus. The acidity (not classic pH acidity of aqueous solutions because there's virtually no H2O there) of Venus's atmosphere is orders of magnitude larger than even the most acidic terrestrial environments inhabited by extremophiles. Earthly microbes would have been either dessicated or carbonized in order of minutes if not seconds. Think what concentrated sulfuric acid does to organic substances like sugar.
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What if the Venera probe had bacteria on it that survived?
It would unwise to declare that this is impossible.
However, consider the obstacles during the cruise stage to Venus:
* The UV/Xray/Cosmic radiation
* vacuum
* extreme cold and hot
Then the germ would presumably need to shed itself from the spacecraft during the brief descent to the surface.
Seems very, very unlikely.
If any Venus Cloud bugs are discovered, we'll be able to see if they have any DNA. If yes, then we can look at that and make a good guess if it is related to Earth organisms.
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Many, many thanks for that. 8) That clever, old trick of reviewing past missions data, it always work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_program
What is really interesting there: it was those Vega probes that carried the (french) balloons. Didn't remembered however that they also had landers.
Venus balloons were the "pet peeves" of a french space scientist, Jacques Blamont. Who passed away, aged 93, last April. Sad he couldn't live some more weeks to see that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Blamont
OT: the Vega balloons were born as an idea of dr. Blamont, but they were 100% Soviet built, not French
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What if the Venera probe had bacteria on it that survived?
It would unwise to declare that this is impossible.
No really, it is quite impossible, assuming the laws of physics are the same on Venus as Earth.
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Interview with R J Graham an expert in atmospheric physics on rocky planets.
https://youtu.be/7YNxMVJN-Hk
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Member: I like jokes.
Member: But jokes can clog up a discussion thread.
Moderator: We have a party thread (https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=42585.0) for humorous observations, etc.
Moderator: Please use the party thread for party content. Thank you. ;D
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A question for any astronomers / planetary scientists still following:
I've seen a few comments to the effect that the observatories used to detect signs of phosphine on Venus were not ideally suited to the task, for various reasons.
Are there existing instruments, either earthbound or in space, that would do a better job, presumably requiring less data massaging and being able to look at more than one spectral line? Or is this something that will need to be purpose built?
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and being able to look at more than one spectral line?
Before the pandemic intervened, the team planned to use SOFIA and the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (in Hawaii) to confirm a phosphine signature in the infrared.
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I'm not very impressed by this announcement. Despite the fact that life is very common on the surface of the Earth, it is very rarely found in clouds. Surface based life might sometimes be wafted up into the atmosphere, but there are no species that make their home primarily in clouds. A big reason for this is probably lack of nutrients. It takes a magnesium atom to make a chlorophyll molecule. Magnesium compounds are all high melting point solids, so they are not found in the atmosphere. No magnesium means no chlorophyll. No chlorophyll means no energy. No energy means no life. Iron, potassium and other vital elements face similar issues. There has been some speculation about cloud based life, but there is little observational evidence to back that up.
Life is even less likely in Venus clouds because they are made of concentrated sulfuric acid. There is a classic experiment where concentrated sulfuric acid turns sugar into a charcoal foam. Many important biological molecules contain sugar units, which will be destroyed by Venus conditions. In my opinion, it is safe to say that life is NOT the source of the phosphine on Venus. In their paper, the scientists were much more skeptical about life than they were at the press conference. I think they are exaggerating the possibility of life in order to attract funding.
In the scientific paper, one possibility they mention for phosphine production is a rate of volcanism 200 times that of Earth. The scientists dismiss this possibility, but I am not sure they should. What do we really know about the rate of volcanism on Venus? A high rate of volcanism would help to explain why the atmosphere is so thick. How does a planet with no magnetic field retain such a thick atmosphere? The Venusian surface has a lot of volcanic features, and there are rivers of lava thousands of miles long.
I have also heard scientists say that we know nothing about the deep atmosphere of Venus. Given the uncertainties in the composition of the deep atmosphere and the nature of the surface materials in contact with it, there is no way to rule out an inorganic chemical source for the phosphine. A complication here is that the deep atmosphere is not really a gas. At Venus surface pressures it is a supercritical fluid. Supercritical CO2 is a good solvent for some things, and that will affect the chemistry.
If Venus was ever Earth like, there should have been deposits of apatite in the crust. This would have converted to phosphoric acid when the atmosphere became hot and acidic. At Venus temperatures, phosphoric acid will be some kind of fluid. The atmosphere should therefore contain a lot of phosphorous compounds.
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There has been some interesting work done on aerial platforms for Venus exploration. Here is a link.
https://www.lpi.usra.edu/vexag/reports/Venus_Aerial_Platforms_Final_Report_Summary_Report_10_25_2018.pdf
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I really should have posted this yesterday because it covers the fact that this announcement has to be seen in the context of at least two other anomalies about the Venusian atmosphere previously discovered:
https://youtu.be/aDL0jbOnTtA
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You DO however, need a source of Phosphorus and Hydrogen. Venus's atmosphere has lots of phosphorus in the form of Phosphorous Anhydride P4O6, but next to no hydrogen.
Thanks for that. I was browsing through some interesting chemical reactions with phosphine yesterday, but I was still wondering how the phosphorous in the atmosphere was replenished.
Even if life is causing the reaction, the real question is where the hydrogen is coming from!?!
One of the aforementioned reactions is with sulfuric acid, where phosphine reacts with sulfuric acid. Hydrolizing the H2O (or whatever the biological variant of that process is called) gives a net 1.5 H2 molecules for every molecule of PH3. Meaning PH3 can be used as a lifting gas, water harvesting method and part of a protective measure against sulfuric acid.
I'm not very impressed by this announcement. Despite the fact that life is very common on the surface of the Earth, it is very rarely found in clouds. Surface based life might sometimes be wafted up into the atmosphere, but there are no species that make their home primarily in clouds. A big reason for this is probably lack of nutrients. It takes a magnesium atom to make a chlorophyll molecule. Magnesium compounds are all high melting point solids, so they are not found in the atmosphere. No magnesium means no chlorophyll. No chlorophyll means no energy. No energy means no life. Iron, potassium and other vital elements face similar issues. There has been some speculation about cloud based life, but there is little observational evidence to back that up.
On the other hand, the Venusian atmosphere is composed of heavier gases, allowing heavier bacteria to stay airborne longer, and allowing a bigger range of lift gases. Getting some substances (water, oxygen, carbon) is easier in the cloud layer than on the surface there. Is that enough to allow life to survive there? Impossible to tell right now.
Clorophyll based photochemistry was a major step up for life here. But life predates those lifeforms by far. If life exists on Venus, it's probably stuck at a very low level of sophistication. There are probably 'great filters' between what is possible on Venus, Mars, Europa, Enceladus, and Earth.
Saying it's impossible because that's not how it turned out here, is a little shortsighted.
Life is even less likely in Venus clouds because they are made of concentrated sulfuric acid. There is a classic experiment where concentrated sulfuric acid turns sugar into a charcoal foam. Many important biological molecules contain sugar units, which will be destroyed by Venus conditions. In my opinion, it is safe to say that life is NOT the source of the phosphine on Venus. In their paper, the scientists were much more skeptical about life than they were at the press conference. I think they are exaggerating the possibility of life in order to attract funding.
While I do agree that life is still not the most likely source, having an outside 'scale' composed of carbon impregnated with phosphine would protect against sulfuric acid. On Earth, there are extremophiles that thrive in highly acidic - though nowhere near Venus acidic - environments.
Polar bears don't survive in the tropics, tropical animals don't survive on the north pole, and neither survive underwater for long (and humans survive none of these biomes for long without significant equipment). That doesn't mean that no life form can evolve that can cling to life in any of these biomes.
In the scientific paper, one possibility they mention for phosphine production is a rate of volcanism 200 times that of Earth. The scientists dismiss this possibility, but I am not sure they should. What do we really know about the rate of volcanism on Venus? A high rate of volcanism would help to explain why the atmosphere is so thick. How does a planet with no magnetic field retain such a thick atmosphere? The Venusian surface has a lot of volcanic features, and there are rivers of lava thousands of miles long.
'200 times more active' would have been noticed, I would assume. But more research is needed indeed. The lava rivers you talk about are basalt plains as far as I know. We haven't seen active volcanoes. Which doesn't mean they aren't there, but saying there are 200 times as many as there are on Earth is about as big of a jump away from our understanding of Venus as claiming it's life.
If Venus was ever Earth like, there should have been deposits of apatite in the crust. This would have converted to phosphoric acid when the atmosphere became hot and acidic. At Venus temperatures, phosphoric acid will be some kind of fluid. The atmosphere should therefore contain a lot of phosphorous compounds.
which appears to be the case, but doesn't mean much. We still need to understand the chemical process involved.
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Who knew but apparently Venus is a Russian planet.
Russia has announced an intention to independently explore Venus a day after scientists said there was a gas that could be present in the planet's clouds due to single-cell microbes.
The head of Russia's space corporation Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, told reporters that they would initiate a national project as "we believe that Venus is a Russian planet," according to the TASS news agency.
In a statement, Roscosmos noted that the first missions to explore Venus were carried out by the Soviet Union.
"The enormous gap between the Soviet Union and its competitors in the investigation of Venus contributed to the fact that the United States called Venus a Soviet planet," Roscosmos said.
https://www.euronews.com/2020/09/15/venus-is-a-russian-planet-russian-space-agency-announces-national-effort-to-explore-earth-
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BepiColombo will try and confirm the detection. There is a phosphine signature in MERTIS' wavelength range but they're unsure about detectability of the signal. Unlikely on the first flyby, but next year's flyby will be a better chance.
https://twitter.com/Astro_Jonny/status/1306244941333528582
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brilliant !!
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Won't they get observation time at any telescope they want at this point, or what exactly stands in the way of confirming this result?
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Won't they get observation time at any telescope they want at this point, or what exactly stands in the way of confirming this result?
There isn't a telescope better than they have already used (ALMA) for that. They explain in the supplementary material options for confirming the detection. They will probably try with IR telescopes (SOFIA and maybe others), but as far as I understand, the chances of detection aren't that great with those. There's also another phosphine line that could theoretically be detected with ALMA, but that too is very marginal.
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Won't they get observation time at any telescope they want at this point, or what exactly stands in the way of confirming this result?
Time on telescopes is competitively assigned and scheduled in advance.
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Prof Sara Seager has been talking to @rocketlab - they would have a spacecraft that is about 15 kg so you're payload would have to be about 3 kg - quite a challenge, but exciting that they are thinking about it. #VenusNews
https://twitter.com/RoyalAstroSoc/status/1305536726425833474
Obvious question at this point - for something of this magnitude, why spend $7m on an Electron to get a very limited capability 3kg payload to Venus, when for maybe $40m-$50m a reusable F9 could deliver a payload orders of magnitude larger and more capable. I’d imagine funding for such a mission would be a trivial challenge.
RL mission would be about $20m all up including LV. If NASA are spending $50m on F9R it will endup being $+200m mission, lot more capable but also lot more expensive. Has to go through review process and justify it's self against other missions competing for same funding.
Even if you have funding for a $200m mission, it may make sense to split that into a series of 10 $20m missions anyway. While it would limit your maximum single instrument mass, it has several advantages:
- Every instrument can get its own dedicated bus, which means no instrument has to compromise in observation time, angle or position with any other.
- Multiple redundancy. A craft failure takes out an instrument, not a mission. Allows for riskier choices (e.g. reducing individual component redundancy) which may claw back some mass budget.
- Said riskier choices may also shorten instrument development cycles
- Serial dispatch. Unless you want to send a swarm all at once, you can space out instruments over time, with the potential to even follow up earlier observations with a subsequent new instrument designed to complement or investigate further.
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Rocketlab vs Beppi-colombo: the rush toward Venus phosphine-critters is ON.
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Prof Sara Seager has been talking to @rocketlab - they would have a spacecraft that is about 15 kg so you're payload would have to be about 3 kg - quite a challenge, but exciting that they are thinking about it. #VenusNews
https://twitter.com/RoyalAstroSoc/status/1305536726425833474
Obvious question at this point - for something of this magnitude, why spend $7m on an Electron to get a very limited capability 3kg payload to Venus, when for maybe $40m-$50m a reusable F9 could deliver a payload orders of magnitude larger and more capable. I’d imagine funding for such a mission would be a trivial challenge.
RL mission would be about $20m all up including LV. If NASA are spending $50m on F9R it will endup being $+200m mission, lot more capable but also lot more expensive. Has to go through review process and justify it's self against other missions competing for same funding.
Even if you have funding for a $200m mission, it may make sense to split that into a series of 10 $20m missions anyway. While it would limit your maximum single instrument mass, it has several advantages:
- Every instrument can get its own dedicated bus, which means no instrument has to compromise in observation time, angle or position with any other.
- Multiple redundancy. A craft failure takes out an instrument, not a mission. Allows for riskier choices (e.g. reducing individual component redundancy) which may claw back some mass budget.
- Said riskier choices may also shorten instrument development cycles
- Serial dispatch. Unless you want to send a swarm all at once, you can space out instruments over time, with the potential to even follow up earlier observations with a subsequent new instrument designed to complement or investigate further.
Limited mass budget and DV for likes of Photon will never replace science Discovery class missions are capable of. Where they shine is doing earlier low cost missions which help define payload of more expensive missions.
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Won't they get observation time at any telescope they want at this point, or what exactly stands in the way of confirming this result?
Time on telescopes is competitively assigned and scheduled in advance.
Yes, but sometime? most of the time? there is "wiggle room" in telescope scheduling for short-term time-sensitive observations.
That time can be used at the observatory director's discretion.
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Won't they get observation time at any telescope they want at this point, or what exactly stands in the way of confirming this result?
Time on telescopes is competitively assigned and scheduled in advance.
Yes, but sometime? most of the time? there is "wiggle room" in telescope scheduling for short-term time-sensitive observations.
That time can be used at the observatory director's discretion.
Yes, most observatories have ~5% of observing time reserved for Director's Discretionary Time and that's what Greaves et al. used to do their ALMA observations. If a credible observation strategy can be found for confirming the phosphine detection, I'm sure they don't have trouble getting DDT allocation at any observatory. The problem is that there's not much that can be done with current observing capabilities.
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Won't they get observation time at any telescope they want at this point, or what exactly stands in the way of confirming this result?
Time on telescopes is competitively assigned and scheduled in advance.
Yes, but sometime? most of the time? there is "wiggle room" in telescope scheduling for short-term time-sensitive observations.
That time can be used at the observatory director's discretion.
Yes they could apply for Director's Discretionary Time, a lot of facilities have it. However as has been noted above options are limited from the ground through a combination of weak/confused signals at wavelengths viewable from Earth, the fact the relevant telescopes aren't designed to look at something as bright as Venus, as well as the fact many facilities are either shut down or in reduced activity and working on a backlog of viewing programmes. They chose to use JCMT/ALMA precisely because they were the best chance to see anything.
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Prof Sara Seager has been talking to @rocketlab - they would have a spacecraft that is about 15 kg so you're payload would have to be about 3 kg - quite a challenge, but exciting that they are thinking about it. #VenusNews
https://twitter.com/RoyalAstroSoc/status/1305536726425833474
Obvious question at this point - for something of this magnitude, why spend $7m on an Electron to get a very limited capability 3kg payload to Venus, when for maybe $40m-$50m a reusable F9 could deliver a payload orders of magnitude larger and more capable. I’d imagine funding for such a mission would be a trivial challenge.
RL mission would be about $20m all up including LV. If NASA are spending $50m on F9R it will endup being $+200m mission, lot more capable but also lot more expensive. Has to go through review process and justify it's self against other missions competing for same funding.
Even if you have funding for a $200m mission, it may make sense to split that into a series of 10 $20m missions anyway. While it would limit your maximum single instrument mass, it has several advantages:
- Every instrument can get its own dedicated bus, which means no instrument has to compromise in observation time, angle or position with any other.
- Multiple redundancy. A craft failure takes out an instrument, not a mission. Allows for riskier choices (e.g. reducing individual component redundancy) which may claw back some mass budget.
- Said riskier choices may also shorten instrument development cycles
- Serial dispatch. Unless you want to send a swarm all at once, you can space out instruments over time, with the potential to even follow up earlier observations with a subsequent new instrument designed to complement or investigate further.
You can also add:
* a delayed instrument, doesn't delay the launch of the rest
* the timescale for building a simple thing, is faster than the timescale to build a complex thing. Speed of development is a virtue worth having.
* other things being equal, a set of simple probes will likely be cheaper than one complex mission
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Rocketlab vs Beppi-colombo: the rush toward Venus phosphine-critters is ON.
The saloon doors are still open, and we have yet to see who's going to be faster: PSP is also in the game with its February flyby!
https://twitter.com/Astro_Jonny/status/1306935387030466560
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Oh really ? The more, the merrier ! Go, Parker Solar probe, GO ! :o
Rocketlab vs Beppi-colombo: the rush toward Venus phosphine-critters is ON.
Rocketlab vs Beppi vs PSP...
It is pretty interesting to think, such different probes (Beppi & PSP - none designed for Venus) can look for phosphine.
Then again the "basic" phosphorus element is pretty common stuff in the universe, so maybe that's the reason why... ?
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Oh really ? The more, the merrier ! Go, Parker Solar probe, GO ! :o
Rocketlab vs Beppi-colombo: the rush toward Venus phosphine-critters is ON.
Rocketlab vs Beppi vs PSP...
It is pretty interesting to think, such different probes (Beppi & PSP - none designed for Venus) can look for phosphine.
Then again the "basic" phosphorus element is pretty common stuff in the universe, so maybe that's the reason why... ?
As long as their instruments are able to "catch" one of its emission lines in their working range (accounting for flyby Doppler shifts of course, and supposing the chosen line is not contaminated by other substances) and their sensitivity is good enough to detect the small concentrations involved, I guess they should be good :) I suppose most of the "science of opportunity" by these differently-purposed probes will be mostly a confirmation and background-cleaning exercise, rather than have the signal jump right at them.
That being said, from the comments it seems it's not clear how PSP's instruments would manage to do this, but the team probably came up with a less obvious way if O'Callaghan's sources are sound.
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I did look up the next PSP transit time, but I'm not sure what it could actually accomplish. As far as I can tell, there are no spectrometers on board that could look for emission lines (the only optical sensor is WISPR).
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Isn’t ESA’s Solar Orbiter going to be making some Venus flybys?
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Isn’t ESA’s Solar Orbiter going to be making some Venus flybys?
https://sci.esa.int/web/solar-orbiter/-/solar-orbiter-s-journey-around-the-sun-1
Eight times: 26 Dec 2020, 08 Aug 2021, 03 Sep 2022, 18 Feb 2025, 24 Dec 2026, 17 Mar 2028, 10 Jun 2029 and 02 Sep 2030
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(that ackward moment when you realize you definitively lost the count of ongoing planetary probe missions) ::)
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(that ackward moment when you realize you definitively lost the count of ongoing planetary probe missions) ::)
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Missing at least Tianwen-1 and Hope on the Mars front...
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The figure shows missions that NASA has a formal role in.
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As long as their instruments are able to "catch" one of its emission lines in their working range (accounting for flyby Doppler shifts of course, and supposing the chosen line is not contaminated by other substances) and their sensitivity is good enough to detect the small concentrations involved, I guess they should be good :) I suppose most of the "science of opportunity" by these differently-purposed probes will be mostly a confirmation and background-cleaning exercise, rather than have the signal jump right at them.
That being said, from the comments it seems it's not clear how PSP's instruments would manage to do this, but the team probably came up with a less obvious way if O'Callaghan's sources are sound.
I another tweet he says it's the SWEAP instrument, so I guess they would hope to directly detect ionised phosphine during the flyby. To be honest, it seems kinda dubious to me that they could detect something that's only (maybe) present at ppb-levels in the cloud decks. The part of the atmosphere that the PSP would be sampling is completely different and I'm not sure if there's any reason to expect phosphine to exist there even if it were present in the clouds.
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Here's Fraser Cain's take on this.
"If you’ve been watching any of my videos or listening to Astronomy Cast, you’re cautiously optimistic. Skeptical, but hopeful."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRobiDiHpvE
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If there is life on Venus, how could it have got there? Origin of life experts explain
https://theconversation.com/if-there-is-life-on-venus-how-could-it-have-got-there-origin-of-life-experts-explain-146407
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If there is life on Venus, how could it have got there? Origin of life experts explain
https://theconversation.com/if-there-is-life-on-venus-how-could-it-have-got-there-origin-of-life-experts-explain-146407
hmmm I read this one earlier this morning.
There's a big assumption hiding in there. They took pains to describe how they don't just take terrestrial phosphine generating organisms "at their word", since that would be terra-centric, but instead only consider fundamental limits on processes that might generate phosphine.
But this, by definition, would estimate how much biomass is on Venus if the hypothetical organisms are as efficient as theoretical limits at generating phosphine, right?
But are they?
For context, if they were to consider Penguin gut microbes, how much less efficient are they at the task of generating Phosphine?
-
If there is life on Venus, how could it have got there? Origin of life experts explain
https://theconversation.com/if-there-is-life-on-venus-how-could-it-have-got-there-origin-of-life-experts-explain-146407
hmmm I read this one earlier this morning.
There's a big assumption hiding in there. They took pains to describe how they don't just take terrestrial phosphine generating organisms "at their word", since that would be terra-centric, but instead only consider fundamental limits on processes that might generate phosphine.
But this, by definition, would estimate how much biomass is on Venus if the hypothetical organisms are as efficient as theoretical limits at generating phosphine, right?
But are they?
For context, if they were to consider Penguin gut microbes, how much less efficient are they at the task of generating Phosphine?
Yes, I am pleased you make that point, because it seems to be largely overlooked by most commentators. We extrapolate biomarkers based on Earth life, and Earth conditions where Earth-life is known. But if Venus-life exists, and is radically different to Earth-life, are those extrapolations still valid?
Fact is, we don't really know how valid are bio-markers really are, until we do the experiment - which means finding extraterrestrial life and validating our assumptions. We have difficulty defining life on Earth - there are about 30 definitions. It's great that we probing other potential biospheres, but it's a difficult job evaluating trace markers when we are not exactly sure what type of life we are looking for.
Tbh, finding bacterial life (or similar) on a temperate, watery planet similar to Earth would not surprise me that much - it would be amazing to find, but somewhat expected. Finding life on a planet like Venus would really be a shock, and we would have to re-evaluate a lot of our assumptions.
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Couldn’t life on Venus be based on something other than carbon. We only assume all life is carbon based because of Earth.
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Couldn’t life on Venus be based on something other than carbon. We only assume all life is carbon based because of Earth.
From what I understand of chemistry, organic chemistry is as complex as all other chemistries combined. Those four valencies are kinda unique. The other is silicon, that it's very hard to get it to dissolve and interact like carbon.
Yes, I think ammonia also has four if you can get to cryo temps. But Venus is not exactly cold. And you still have the problem of getting a good solvent at cryo. And it's still a molecule, not an element on which to base your chemistry.
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If there is life on Venus, how could it have got there? Origin of life experts explain
https://theconversation.com/if-there-is-life-on-venus-how-could-it-have-got-there-origin-of-life-experts-explain-146407
hmmm I read this one earlier this morning.
There's a big assumption hiding in there. They took pains to describe how they don't just take terrestrial phosphine generating organisms "at their word", since that would be terra-centric, but instead only consider fundamental limits on processes that might generate phosphine.
But this, by definition, would estimate how much biomass is on Venus if the hypothetical organisms are as efficient as theoretical limits at generating phosphine, right?
But are they?
For context, if they were to consider Penguin gut microbes, how much less efficient are they at the task of generating Phosphine?
Yes, I am pleased you make that point, because it seems to be largely overlooked by most commentators. We extrapolate biomarkers based on Earth life, and Earth conditions where Earth-life is known. But if Venus-life exists, and is radically different to Earth-life, are those extrapolations still valid?
Fact is, we don't really know how valid are bio-markers really are, until we do the experiment - which means finding extraterrestrial life and validating our assumptions. We have difficulty defining life on Earth - there are about 30 definitions. It's great that we probing other potential biospheres, but it's a difficult job evaluating trace markers when we are not exactly sure what type of life we are looking for.
Tbh, finding bacterial life (or similar) on a temperate, watery planet similar to Earth would not surprise me that much - it would be amazing to find, but somewhat expected. Finding life on a planet like Venus would really be a shock, and we would have to re-evaluate a lot of our assumptions.
Right?
People losing their $417 in all ways..
On the one hand they're fantasizing about microbes and spores, whereas a much simpler self-replicating pre-RNA molecule can also do the trick.. Where's the line between "complex chemistry" and "simple life" anyway?
Second, they swing the other way and try to bound the amount of biome needed using only fundamental chemical/energy considerations.. an interesting exercise, and a theoretical bound, but hardly appropriate when trying to ascertain how likely the proposition of life is...
Me, I'm in the camp that wouldn't be surprised if there's something going on in the atmosphere, because the temperature and pressure are good, so why not?
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But if Venus-life exists, and is radically different to Earth-life, are those extrapolations still valid?
Fact is, we don't really know how valid are bio-markers really are, until we do the experiment - which means finding extraterrestrial life and validating our assumptions. We have difficulty defining life on Earth - there are about 30 definitions. It's great that we probing other potential biospheres, but it's a difficult job evaluating trace markers when we are not exactly sure what type of life we are looking for.
Tbh, finding bacterial life (or similar) on a temperate, watery planet similar to Earth would not surprise me that much - it would be amazing to find, but somewhat expected. Finding life on a planet like Venus would really be a shock, and we would have to re-evaluate a lot of our assumptions.
As far as validating goes, validating your theories with a second data point only says something about those two planets, and nothing about the rest of the universe.
Still a lot of Eartherism in your post. I would not be suprised by relatively prolific life near hydrothermal vents in ice moons, or hidden away in subteranean pools on Mars. Venus (and Titan) would be very much a stretch of how much liquid water I thought was necessary, but 'pools of liquid water on the solid surface' has always seemed as a far too strict requirement IMO. For bacterial life at least. Even on Earth, it took a long time for multicellular life evolved.
-
If there is life on Venus, how could it have got there? Origin of life experts explain
https://theconversation.com/if-there-is-life-on-venus-how-could-it-have-got-there-origin-of-life-experts-explain-146407
hmmm I read this one earlier this morning.
There's a big assumption hiding in there. They took pains to describe how they don't just take terrestrial phosphine generating organisms "at their word", since that would be terra-centric, but instead only consider fundamental limits on processes that might generate phosphine.
But this, by definition, would estimate how much biomass is on Venus if the hypothetical organisms are as efficient as theoretical limits at generating phosphine, right?
But are they?
For context, if they were to consider Penguin gut microbes, how much less efficient are they at the task of generating Phosphine?
Yes, I am pleased you make that point, because it seems to be largely overlooked by most commentators. We extrapolate biomarkers based on Earth life, and Earth conditions where Earth-life is known. But if Venus-life exists, and is radically different to Earth-life, are those extrapolations still valid?
Fact is, we don't really know how valid are bio-markers really are, until we do the experiment - which means finding extraterrestrial life and validating our assumptions. We have difficulty defining life on Earth - there are about 30 definitions. It's great that we probing other potential biospheres, but it's a difficult job evaluating trace markers when we are not exactly sure what type of life we are looking for.
Tbh, finding bacterial life (or similar) on a temperate, watery planet similar to Earth would not surprise me that much - it would be amazing to find, but somewhat expected. Finding life on a planet like Venus would really be a shock, and we would have to re-evaluate a lot of our assumptions.
Right?
People losing their $417 in all ways..
On the one hand they're fantasizing about microbes and spores, whereas a much simpler self-replicating pre-RNA molecule can also do the trick.. Where's the line between "complex chemistry" and "simple life" anyway?
Second, they swing the other way and try to bound the amount of biome needed using only fundamental chemical/energy considerations.. an interesting exercise, and a theoretical bound, but hardly appropriate when trying to ascertain how likely the proposition of life is...
Me, I'm in the camp that wouldn't be surprised if there's something going on in the atmosphere, because the temperature and pressure are good, so why not?
Because neither the pressures or temperatures are anything like the deep interiors of gas giants where it can be generated chemically.
-
If there is life on Venus, how could it have got there? Origin of life experts explain
https://theconversation.com/if-there-is-life-on-venus-how-could-it-have-got-there-origin-of-life-experts-explain-146407
hmmm I read this one earlier this morning.
There's a big assumption hiding in there. They took pains to describe how they don't just take terrestrial phosphine generating organisms "at their word", since that would be terra-centric, but instead only consider fundamental limits on processes that might generate phosphine.
But this, by definition, would estimate how much biomass is on Venus if the hypothetical organisms are as efficient as theoretical limits at generating phosphine, right?
But are they?
For context, if they were to consider Penguin gut microbes, how much less efficient are they at the task of generating Phosphine?
Yes, I am pleased you make that point, because it seems to be largely overlooked by most commentators. We extrapolate biomarkers based on Earth life, and Earth conditions where Earth-life is known. But if Venus-life exists, and is radically different to Earth-life, are those extrapolations still valid?
Fact is, we don't really know how valid are bio-markers really are, until we do the experiment - which means finding extraterrestrial life and validating our assumptions. We have difficulty defining life on Earth - there are about 30 definitions. It's great that we probing other potential biospheres, but it's a difficult job evaluating trace markers when we are not exactly sure what type of life we are looking for.
Tbh, finding bacterial life (or similar) on a temperate, watery planet similar to Earth would not surprise me that much - it would be amazing to find, but somewhat expected. Finding life on a planet like Venus would really be a shock, and we would have to re-evaluate a lot of our assumptions.
Right?
People losing their $417 in all ways..
On the one hand they're fantasizing about microbes and spores, whereas a much simpler self-replicating pre-RNA molecule can also do the trick.. Where's the line between "complex chemistry" and "simple life" anyway?
Second, they swing the other way and try to bound the amount of biome needed using only fundamental chemical/energy considerations.. an interesting exercise, and a theoretical bound, but hardly appropriate when trying to ascertain how likely the proposition of life is...
Me, I'm in the camp that wouldn't be surprised if there's something going on in the atmosphere, because the temperature and pressure are good, so why not?
Because neither the pressures or temperatures are anything like the deep interiors of gas giants where it can be generated chemically.
What temperature and what pressure exactly is required to produce it? Lightning produces high temperatures and pressures and there's bucket loads of that in the atmosphere.
-
If there is life on Venus, how could it have got there? Origin of life experts explain
https://theconversation.com/if-there-is-life-on-venus-how-could-it-have-got-there-origin-of-life-experts-explain-146407
hmmm I read this one earlier this morning.
There's a big assumption hiding in there. They took pains to describe how they don't just take terrestrial phosphine generating organisms "at their word", since that would be terra-centric, but instead only consider fundamental limits on processes that might generate phosphine.
But this, by definition, would estimate how much biomass is on Venus if the hypothetical organisms are as efficient as theoretical limits at generating phosphine, right?
But are they?
For context, if they were to consider Penguin gut microbes, how much less efficient are they at the task of generating Phosphine?
Yes, I am pleased you make that point, because it seems to be largely overlooked by most commentators. We extrapolate biomarkers based on Earth life, and Earth conditions where Earth-life is known. But if Venus-life exists, and is radically different to Earth-life, are those extrapolations still valid?
Fact is, we don't really know how valid are bio-markers really are, until we do the experiment - which means finding extraterrestrial life and validating our assumptions. We have difficulty defining life on Earth - there are about 30 definitions. It's great that we probing other potential biospheres, but it's a difficult job evaluating trace markers when we are not exactly sure what type of life we are looking for.
Tbh, finding bacterial life (or similar) on a temperate, watery planet similar to Earth would not surprise me that much - it would be amazing to find, but somewhat expected. Finding life on a planet like Venus would really be a shock, and we would have to re-evaluate a lot of our assumptions.
Right?
People losing their $417 in all ways..
On the one hand they're fantasizing about microbes and spores, whereas a much simpler self-replicating pre-RNA molecule can also do the trick.. Where's the line between "complex chemistry" and "simple life" anyway?
Second, they swing the other way and try to bound the amount of biome needed using only fundamental chemical/energy considerations.. an interesting exercise, and a theoretical bound, but hardly appropriate when trying to ascertain how likely the proposition of life is...
Me, I'm in the camp that wouldn't be surprised if there's something going on in the atmosphere, because the temperature and pressure are good, so why not?
Because neither the pressures or temperatures are anything like the deep interiors of gas giants where it can be generated chemically.
What temperature and what pressure exactly is required to produce it? Lightning produces high temperatures and pressures and there's bucket loads of that in the atmosphere.
This is orders of magnitude under what would be needed, already considering unreasonably high lightning conditions, as explained in the paper and upthread.
-
If there is life on Venus, how could it have got there? Origin of life experts explain
https://theconversation.com/if-there-is-life-on-venus-how-could-it-have-got-there-origin-of-life-experts-explain-146407
hmmm I read this one earlier this morning.
There's a big assumption hiding in there. They took pains to describe how they don't just take terrestrial phosphine generating organisms "at their word", since that would be terra-centric, but instead only consider fundamental limits on processes that might generate phosphine.
But this, by definition, would estimate how much biomass is on Venus if the hypothetical organisms are as efficient as theoretical limits at generating phosphine, right?
But are they?
For context, if they were to consider Penguin gut microbes, how much less efficient are they at the task of generating Phosphine?
Yes, I am pleased you make that point, because it seems to be largely overlooked by most commentators. We extrapolate biomarkers based on Earth life, and Earth conditions where Earth-life is known. But if Venus-life exists, and is radically different to Earth-life, are those extrapolations still valid?
Fact is, we don't really know how valid are bio-markers really are, until we do the experiment - which means finding extraterrestrial life and validating our assumptions. We have difficulty defining life on Earth - there are about 30 definitions. It's great that we probing other potential biospheres, but it's a difficult job evaluating trace markers when we are not exactly sure what type of life we are looking for.
Tbh, finding bacterial life (or similar) on a temperate, watery planet similar to Earth would not surprise me that much - it would be amazing to find, but somewhat expected. Finding life on a planet like Venus would really be a shock, and we would have to re-evaluate a lot of our assumptions.
Right?
People losing their $417 in all ways..
On the one hand they're fantasizing about microbes and spores, whereas a much simpler self-replicating pre-RNA molecule can also do the trick.. Where's the line between "complex chemistry" and "simple life" anyway?
Second, they swing the other way and try to bound the amount of biome needed using only fundamental chemical/energy considerations.. an interesting exercise, and a theoretical bound, but hardly appropriate when trying to ascertain how likely the proposition of life is...
Me, I'm in the camp that wouldn't be surprised if there's something going on in the atmosphere, because the temperature and pressure are good, so why not?
Because neither the pressures or temperatures are anything like the deep interiors of gas giants where it can be generated chemically.
What temperature and what pressure exactly is required to produce it? Lightning produces high temperatures and pressures and there's bucket loads of that in the atmosphere.
This is orders of magnitude under what would be needed, already considering unreasonably high lightning conditions, as explained in the paper and upthread.
I've looked through all the previous posts and cannot find the answer to my question. Will you please answer it or send a link. Thanks in advance.
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I've looked through all the previous posts and cannot find the answer to my question. Will you please answer it or send a link. Thanks in advance.
Then I'm desolate but you mustn't have looked too hard:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=51942.msg2132364#msg2132364
Lightning may occur on Venus, but at sub-Earth activity levels. We find that PH3 production by Venusian lightning would fall short of few-ppb abundance by factors of 10^7 [i.e. ten million ] or more. [...] Volcanic, lightning and meteoritic delivery were calculated based on parallels with terrestrial rates of events within Venusian atmosphere, and were calculated to be negligible.
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I've looked through all the previous posts and cannot find the answer to my question. Will you please answer it or send a link. Thanks in advance.
Then I'm desolate but you mustn't have looked too hard:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=51942.msg2132364#msg2132364
Lightning may occur on Venus, but at sub-Earth activity levels. We find that PH3 production by Venusian lightning would fall short of few-ppb abundance by factors of 10^7 [i.e. ten million ] or more. [...] Volcanic, lightning and meteoritic delivery were calculated based on parallels with terrestrial rates of events within Venusian atmosphere, and were calculated to be negligible.
My question actually was. 'What pressures and temperatures are needed exactly to produce the molecule?' In detected amounts.
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Right?
People losing their $417 in all ways..
On the one hand they're fantasizing about microbes and spores, whereas a much simpler self-replicating pre-RNA molecule can also do the trick.. Where's the line between "complex chemistry" and "simple life" anyway?
Second, they swing the other way and try to bound the amount of biome needed using only fundamental chemical/energy considerations.. an interesting exercise, and a theoretical bound, but hardly appropriate when trying to ascertain how likely the proposition of life is...
Me, I'm in the camp that wouldn't be surprised if there's something going on in the atmosphere, because the temperature and pressure are good, so why not?
Because neither the pressures or temperatures are anything like the deep interiors of gas giants where it can be generated chemically.
So what temperatures and pressures exist in Penguin guts?
Some microbe can pull it off, but microbes can't defy the laws of physics.
What makes the microbe special?
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I've looked through all the previous posts and cannot find the answer to my question. Will you please answer it or send a link. Thanks in advance.
Then I'm desolate but you mustn't have looked too hard:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=51942.msg2132364#msg2132364 (https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=51942.msg2132364#msg2132364)
Lightning may occur on Venus, but at sub-Earth activity levels. We find that PH3 production by Venusian lightning would fall short of few-ppb abundance by factors of 10^7 [i.e. ten million ] or more. [...] Volcanic, lightning and meteoritic delivery were calculated based on parallels with terrestrial rates of events within Venusian atmosphere, and were calculated to be negligible.
My question actually was. 'What pressures and temperatures are needed exactly to produce the molecule?' In detected amounts.
We have answered the relevant part of your question regarding whether Venusian lightning would be a factor in the production of the detected amounts of phosphene - that answer is negative, by seven orders of magnitude under the conditions we know about, as clearly specified both upthread and in the paper.
Regarding the "exact" figures you seek, there are abundant references about lightning's role in Venus' atmosphere on the paper which I have linked to, precisely where it talks about lightning's minor role in phosphene production, most notably "Lorenz, R. D. Lightning detection on Venus: a critical review. Prog. Earth Planet. Sci. 5, 34 (2018)". A fair amount of research by someone with a solid chemistry background would be needed to find, reverse-engineer the (T,P) conditions or replicate the authors' calculation from those though, so I defer that as an exercise to you (or someone else if so inclined), as it's no longer really relevant to the PH3 discovery anymore.
An approximate answer would be: conditions only found deep into gas giants, including their extreme abundance of a hydrogen-rich, reductive environment.
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Right?
People losing their $417 in all ways..
On the one hand they're fantasizing about microbes and spores, whereas a much simpler self-replicating pre-RNA molecule can also do the trick.. Where's the line between "complex chemistry" and "simple life" anyway?
Second, they swing the other way and try to bound the amount of biome needed using only fundamental chemical/energy considerations.. an interesting exercise, and a theoretical bound, but hardly appropriate when trying to ascertain how likely the proposition of life is...
Me, I'm in the camp that wouldn't be surprised if there's something going on in the atmosphere, because the temperature and pressure are good, so why not?
Because neither the pressures or temperatures are anything like the deep interiors of gas giants where it can be generated chemically.
So what temperatures and pressures exist in Penguin guts?
Some microbe can pull it off, but microbes can't defy the laws of physics.
What makes the microbe special?
Recent work postulates that PH3 production may be associated with the microbial tricarboxylic acid cycle of Enterobacteriaceae (Fan et al., 2020), but the exact metabolic pathway leading to PH3 production in anaerobic organisms remains unknown.
However, we note that the absence of a known enzymatic mechanism is not evidence for the absence of biological production. The synthetic pathways for most of life's natural products are not known, and yet their origin is widely accepted to be biological because of the implausibility of their abiotic synthesis, their obligate association with life, and their chemical similarity to other biological products.
For example, a recently published, manually curated, database of natural molecules produced by life on Earth contains ∼220,000 unique molecules of biological origin, produced by thousands of species (Petkowski et al., 2019a), whereas the number of known, experimentally elucidated, metabolic pathways from organisms belonging to all three domains of life is only ∼2720 [ My note: that's about 1%]
https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2018.1954
Organic chemistry is indistinguishable from magic in many cases :)
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Still no answer to my question apart from the surface pressure and temperature are not enough. Surely a simple chemical molecule has a more specific answer to its production than that.
Not very scientific!
-
Right?
People losing their $417 in all ways..
On the one hand they're fantasizing about microbes and spores, whereas a much simpler self-replicating pre-RNA molecule can also do the trick.. Where's the line between "complex chemistry" and "simple life" anyway?
Second, they swing the other way and try to bound the amount of biome needed using only fundamental chemical/energy considerations.. an interesting exercise, and a theoretical bound, but hardly appropriate when trying to ascertain how likely the proposition of life is...
Me, I'm in the camp that wouldn't be surprised if there's something going on in the atmosphere, because the temperature and pressure are good, so why not?
Because neither the pressures or temperatures are anything like the deep interiors of gas giants where it can be generated chemically.
So what temperatures and pressures exist in Penguin guts?
Some microbe can pull it off, but microbes can't defy the laws of physics.
What makes the microbe special?
Recent work postulates that PH3 production may be associated with the microbial tricarboxylic acid cycle of Enterobacteriaceae (Fan et al., 2020), but the exact metabolic pathway leading to PH3 production in anaerobic organisms remains unknown.
However, we note that the absence of a known enzymatic mechanism is not evidence for the absence of biological production. The synthetic pathways for most of life's natural products are not known, and yet their origin is widely accepted to be biological because of the implausibility of their abiotic synthesis, their obligate association with life, and their chemical similarity to other biological products.
For example, a recently published, manually curated, database of natural molecules produced by life on Earth contains ∼220,000 unique molecules of biological origin, produced by thousands of species (Petkowski et al., 2019a), whereas the number of known, experimentally elucidated, metabolic pathways from organisms belonging to all three domains of life is only ∼2720 [ My note: that's about 1%]
https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2018.1954
Organic chemistry is indistinguishable from magic in many cases :)
Yeah they just gave it a name.
In other words, we don't understand how it's produced by these guys, so we'll call it "biotic" and then imply "life on Venus".
But we also equally don't understand why other microbes don't produce it.
And we have no idea what chemical reactions are occuring on Venus, same as we don't know what's going on in the Penguin gut.
I'm liking the "life on Venus" excitement less and less.
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Still no answer to my question apart from the surface pressure and temperature are not enough. Surely a simple chemical molecule has a more specific answer to its production than that.
Not very scientific!
They're not enough by 7 orders of magnitude, or around ten million times, under the conditions and the chemistry rules we know about - not just slightly, questionably "not enough".
There are surely pathways we do *not* know about, such as the very biological mechanism invoked as a possibility. Difficult to say anything precise about unknowns. Water is an even simpler chemical molecule and yet richly complicated in both behavior and production, no reason why PH3 can't share some of that complexity.
You refusing to look into the sources that are being spoon-fed to you while dropping inane single-liners and demanding quantitatively precise answers to questions already answered is certainly not constructive, let alone scientific. I seem to remember another such early post of yours in this very thread that soon got removed, by the way.
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Still no answer to my question apart from the surface pressure and temperature are not enough. Surely a simple chemical molecule has a more specific answer to its production than that.
Not very scientific!
They're not enough by 7 orders of magnitude, or around ten million times, under the conditions and the chemistry rules we know about - not just slightly, questionably "not enough".
There are surely pathways we do *not* know about, such as the very biological mechanism invoked as a possibility. Difficult to say anything precise about unknowns. Water is an even simpler chemical molecule and yet richly complicated in both behavior and production, no reason why PH3 can't share some of that complexity.
You refusing to look into the sources that are being spoon-fed to you while dropping inane single-liners and demanding quantitatively precise answers to questions already answered is certainly not constructive, let alone scientific. I seem to remember another such early post of yours in this very thread that soon got removed, by the way.
No need for negative comments.
None of your links answered my question...until this one - 10 million times. Thanks for the answer.
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Yeah they just gave it a name.
In other words, we don't understand how it's produced by these guys, so we'll call it "biotic" and then imply "life on Venus".
But we also equally don't understand why other microbes don't produce it.
And we have no idea what chemical reactions are occuring on Venus, same as we don't know what's going on in the Penguin gut.
I'm liking the "life on Venus" excitement less and less.
I guess the reasoning is more along the lines of "all abiotic mechanisms we know about are ruled out with huge margins, but there's that little, unlikely thing we also know about, which we should rule out before throwing up our hands in the air in despair".
If the phosphene abundance measurement is about right, which the authors have made every effort to confirm, but will be further explored by other instruments and teams - then it's either an unknown mechanism not present or easily deducible on Earth (which, by definition, cannot be further described for now), or that one weird thing that'll make you click on a side banner :) : a most-probably-complex biochemical pathway used by microbes in penguin guts, swamps and other such delightful locations, which we DO know about. It's unlikely, it's eyebrow-raising, but previous works pointing to this compound as a biomarker did happen to exist.
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No need for negative comments.
None of your links answered my question...until this one - 10 million times. Thanks for the answer.
[This comment was posted on Sept. 22nd, at 15:46:42 CEST.]
Then I'm desolate but you mustn't have looked too hard:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=51942.msg2132364#msg2132364
Lightning may occur on Venus, but at sub-Earth activity levels. We find that PH3 production by Venusian lightning would fall short of few-ppb abundance by factors of 10^7 [i.e. ten million ] or more. [...] Volcanic, lightning and meteoritic delivery were calculated based on parallels with terrestrial rates of events within Venusian atmosphere, and were calculated to be negligible.
[This comment was posted on Sept. 15th, at 04:35:06 CEST, based on a free-access paper published the day before Sept 14th, leaked several days before, and quoted by me on Sept. 22nd at 14:00:06 CEST.]
My question actually was. 'What pressures and temperatures are needed exactly to produce the molecule?' In detected amounts.
That lightning under known Venusian conditions and chemical pathways should be 10 million times stronger than it is currently understood to be in order to explain the lower limit on the observed phosphene levels, does NOT mean temperatures and pressures should be 10 million times higher than in Venus - which is clearly absurd, as they would need to be higher than those at the core of a star.
I honestly can't tell if you're trolling or have a reading issue. Either way, I'm outta here, this exchange has dragged on for far too long.
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Yeah they just gave it a name.
In other words, we don't understand how it's produced by these guys, so we'll call it "biotic" and then imply "life on Venus".
But we also equally don't understand why other microbes don't produce it.
And we have no idea what chemical reactions are occuring on Venus, same as we don't know what's going on in the Penguin gut.
I'm liking the "life on Venus" excitement less and less.
I guess the reasoning is more along the lines of "all abiotic mechanisms we know about are ruled out with huge margins, but there's that little, unlikely thing we also know about, which we should rule out before throwing up our hands in the air in despair".
If the phosphene abundance measurement is about right, which the authors have made every effort to confirm, but will be further explored by other instruments and teams - then it's either an unknown mechanism not present or easily deducible on Earth (which, by definition, cannot be further described for now), or that one weird thing that'll make you click on a side banner :) : a most-probably-complex biochemical pathway used by microbes in penguin guts, swamps and other such delightful locations, which we DO know about. It's unlikely, it's eyebrow-raising, but previous works pointing to this compound as a biomarker did happen to exist.
Yes, that's a fair characterization - I like it a lot more than all the talk of microbes and spores.
Also, Phosphine is lighter than CO2, so will gradient upwards. I guess till such altitude that it's dissociated by sunlight?
The detection is of the atmosphere as a whole, from the outside, so is naturally more sensitive to upper atmosphere Phosphine, correct?
EDIT: what I'm getting it is - how do we know that the Phosphine was generated in terrestrial-like conditions? Maybe the crazy chemistry is occuring further down and the Phosphine is migrating upwards?
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No need for negative comments.
None of your links answered my question...until this one - 10 million times. Thanks for the answer.
[This comment was posted on Sept. 22nd, at 15:46:42 CEST.]
Then I'm desolate but you mustn't have looked too hard:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=51942.msg2132364#msg2132364
Lightning may occur on Venus, but at sub-Earth activity levels. We find that PH3 production by Venusian lightning would fall short of few-ppb abundance by factors of 10^7 [i.e. ten million ] or more. [...] Volcanic, lightning and meteoritic delivery were calculated based on parallels with terrestrial rates of events within Venusian atmosphere, and were calculated to be negligible.
[This comment was posted on Sept. 15th, at 04:35:06 CEST, based on a free-access paper published the day before Sept 14th, leaked several days before, and quoted by me on Sept. 22nd at 14:00:06 CEST.]
My question actually was. 'What pressures and temperatures are needed exactly to produce the molecule?' In detected amounts.
That lightning under known Venusian conditions and chemical pathways should be 10 million times stronger than it is currently understood to be in order to explain the lower limit on the observed phosphene levels, does NOT mean temperatures and pressures should be 10 million times higher than in Venus - which is clearly absurd, as they would need to be higher than those at the core of a star.
I honestly can't tell if you're trolling or have a reading issue. Either way, I'm outta here, this exchange has dragged on for far too long.
I'm definitely not trolling.
I'm simply asking what temperature and pressure is required to produce this molecule above what is at the surface of Venus. I get that you have ruled out lightning.
Sorry if I haven't been clear enough.
-
Yeah they just gave it a name.
In other words, we don't understand how it's produced by these guys, so we'll call it "biotic" and then imply "life on Venus".
But we also equally don't understand why other microbes don't produce it.
And we have no idea what chemical reactions are occuring on Venus, same as we don't know what's going on in the Penguin gut.
I'm liking the "life on Venus" excitement less and less.
I guess the reasoning is more along the lines of "all abiotic mechanisms we know about are ruled out with huge margins, but there's that little, unlikely thing we also know about, which we should rule out before throwing up our hands in the air in despair".
If the phosphene abundance measurement is about right, which the authors have made every effort to confirm, but will be further explored by other instruments and teams - then it's either an unknown mechanism not present or easily deducible on Earth (which, by definition, cannot be further described for now), or that one weird thing that'll make you click on a side banner :) : a most-probably-complex biochemical pathway used by microbes in penguin guts, swamps and other such delightful locations, which we DO know about. It's unlikely, it's eyebrow-raising, but previous works pointing to this compound as a biomarker did happen to exist.
Yes, that's a fair characterization - I like it a lot more than all the talk of microbes and spores.
Also, Phosphine is lighter than CO2, so will gradient upwards.
The detection is of the atmosphere as a whole, so is naturally more sensitive to upper atmosphere Phosphine, correct?
I think so: the measurements were most sensitive to the "temperate" layer where "life" was first hypothesized to exist - and only in the mid-latitude regions, where the convection mechanisms (Hadley cells) were also long ago been determined as most favorable for (bio)chemistry on longish-timescales needed for reproduction, as opposed to polar or equatorial areas. The details are in the paper, but the attached picture summarizes the point pretty well.
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Yeah they just gave it a name.
In other words, we don't understand how it's produced by these guys, so we'll call it "biotic" and then imply "life on Venus".
But we also equally don't understand why other microbes don't produce it.
And we have no idea what chemical reactions are occuring on Venus, same as we don't know what's going on in the Penguin gut.
I'm liking the "life on Venus" excitement less and less.
I guess the reasoning is more along the lines of "all abiotic mechanisms we know about are ruled out with huge margins, but there's that little, unlikely thing we also know about, which we should rule out before throwing up our hands in the air in despair".
If the phosphene abundance measurement is about right, which the authors have made every effort to confirm, but will be further explored by other instruments and teams - then it's either an unknown mechanism not present or easily deducible on Earth (which, by definition, cannot be further described for now), or that one weird thing that'll make you click on a side banner :) : a most-probably-complex biochemical pathway used by microbes in penguin guts, swamps and other such delightful locations, which we DO know about. It's unlikely, it's eyebrow-raising, but previous works pointing to this compound as a biomarker did happen to exist.
Yes, that's a fair characterization - I like it a lot more than all the talk of microbes and spores.
Also, Phosphine is lighter than CO2, so will gradient upwards.
The detection is of the atmosphere as a whole, so is naturally more sensitive to upper atmosphere Phosphine, correct?
I think so: the measurements were most sensitive to the "temperate" layer where "life" was first hypothesized to exist - and only in the mid-latitude regions, where the convection mechanisms (Hadley cells) were also long ago been determined as most favorable for (bio)chemistry on longish-timescales needed for reproduction, as opposed to polar or equatorial areas. The details are in the paper, but the attached picture summarizes the point pretty well.
K - thx!
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No need for negative comments.
None of your links answered my question...until this one - 10 million times. Thanks for the answer.
[This comment was posted on Sept. 22nd, at 15:46:42 CEST.]
Then I'm desolate but you mustn't have looked too hard:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=51942.msg2132364#msg2132364
Lightning may occur on Venus, but at sub-Earth activity levels. We find that PH3 production by Venusian lightning would fall short of few-ppb abundance by factors of 10^7 [i.e. ten million ] or more. [...] Volcanic, lightning and meteoritic delivery were calculated based on parallels with terrestrial rates of events within Venusian atmosphere, and were calculated to be negligible.
[This comment was posted on Sept. 15th, at 04:35:06 CEST, based on a free-access paper published the day before Sept 14th, leaked several days before, and quoted by me on Sept. 22nd at 14:00:06 CEST.]
My question actually was. 'What pressures and temperatures are needed exactly to produce the molecule?' In detected amounts.
That lightning under known Venusian conditions and chemical pathways should be 10 million times stronger than it is currently understood to be in order to explain the lower limit on the observed phosphene levels, does NOT mean temperatures and pressures should be 10 million times higher than in Venus - which is clearly absurd, as they would need to be higher than those at the core of a star.
I honestly can't tell if you're trolling or have a reading issue. Either way, I'm outta here, this exchange has dragged on for far too long.
I'm definitely not trolling.
I'm simply asking what temperature and pressure is required to produce this molecule above what is at the surface of Venus. I get that you have ruled out lightning.
Sorry if I haven't been clear enough.
I think it’s more the fact you had been given the answer more than once. Especially as it’s a question actually answered in the announcement paper.
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I'm definitely not trolling.
I'm simply asking what temperature and pressure is required to produce this molecule above what is at the surface of Venus. I get that you have ruled out lightning.
Sorry if I haven't been clear enough.
I think it’s more the fact you had been given the answer more than once. Especially as it’s a question actually answered in the announcement paper.
Hmm the only statement I can see is
" PH3 is found elsewhere in the Solar System only in the reducing atmospheres of giant planets12,13, where it is produced in deep atmospheric layers at high temperatures and pressures, and dredged upwards by convection14,1"
There's another statement in the paper about which pressures they considered excluding the reaction, but that's not an answer either.
Did I miss the answer?
He's simply asking if anyone knows what temperatures and pressures these are. Why not answer him, or stop pestering him?
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No need for negative comments.
None of your links answered my question...until this one - 10 million times. Thanks for the answer.
[This comment was posted on Sept. 22nd, at 15:46:42 CEST.]
Then I'm desolate but you mustn't have looked too hard:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=51942.msg2132364#msg2132364
Lightning may occur on Venus, but at sub-Earth activity levels. We find that PH3 production by Venusian lightning would fall short of few-ppb abundance by factors of 10^7 [i.e. ten million ] or more. [...] Volcanic, lightning and meteoritic delivery were calculated based on parallels with terrestrial rates of events within Venusian atmosphere, and were calculated to be negligible.
[This comment was posted on Sept. 15th, at 04:35:06 CEST, based on a free-access paper published the day before Sept 14th, leaked several days before, and quoted by me on Sept. 22nd at 14:00:06 CEST.]
My question actually was. 'What pressures and temperatures are needed exactly to produce the molecule?' In detected amounts.
That lightning under known Venusian conditions and chemical pathways should be 10 million times stronger than it is currently understood to be in order to explain the lower limit on the observed phosphene levels, does NOT mean temperatures and pressures should be 10 million times higher than in Venus - which is clearly absurd, as they would need to be higher than those at the core of a star.
I honestly can't tell if you're trolling or have a reading issue. Either way, I'm outta here, this exchange has dragged on for far too long.
I'm definitely not trolling.
I'm simply asking what temperature and pressure is required to produce this molecule above what is at the surface of Venus. I get that you have ruled out lightning.
Sorry if I haven't been clear enough.
I think it’s more the fact you had been given the answer more than once. Especially as it’s a question actually answered in the announcement paper.
I have not been given the answer even once. I'd appreciate a link to that paper. Thanks in advance.
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I'm definitely not trolling.
I'm simply asking what temperature and pressure is required to produce this molecule above what is at the surface of Venus. I get that you have ruled out lightning.
Sorry if I haven't been clear enough.
There's no single temperature/pressure combination needed to produce the molecule. Its production just gets more effective at high temperatures and pressures compared to other phosphorus-containing species. See https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/506245 (Fig. 4 in particular).
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I'm definitely not trolling.
I'm simply asking what temperature and pressure is required to produce this molecule above what is at the surface of Venus. I get that you have ruled out lightning.
Sorry if I haven't been clear enough.
There's no single temperature/pressure combination needed to produce the molecule. Its production just gets more effective at high temperatures and pressures compared to other phosphorus-containing species. See https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/506245 (Fig. 4 in particular).
I am bemused people are asking this as it was fairly well covered at the time. And asking for very specific temperatures and pressures in this case, as you’ve covered above why this isn’t even a relevant question, does look like trolling even if it is not meant to be.
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I'm definitely not trolling.
I'm simply asking what temperature and pressure is required to produce this molecule above what is at the surface of Venus. I get that you have ruled out lightning.
Sorry if I haven't been clear enough.
There's no single temperature/pressure combination needed to produce the molecule. Its production just gets more effective at high temperatures and pressures compared to other phosphorus-containing species. See https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/506245 (Fig. 4 in particular).
I am bemused people are asking this as it was fairly well covered at the time. And asking for very specific temperatures and pressures in this case, as you’ve covered above why this isn’t even a relevant question, does look like trolling even if it is not meant to be.
Jusy answering the question would be helpful rather than keep referring to previous places where it can be found without being specific. It is a simple question just tell me or say it's not answerable. I am asking only because it has been said many times that it is perfectly possible to produce this molecule in the atmosphere of Jupiter, so trying to understand the difference between the acceptable non biological production in Jupiter atmosphere and the most probable life production in Venus atmosphere.
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I am bemused people are asking this as it was fairly well covered at the time. And asking for very specific temperatures and pressures in this case, as you’ve covered above why this isn’t even a relevant question, does look like trolling even if it is not meant to be.
I think it’s more the fact you had been given the answer more than once. Especially as it’s a question actually answered in the announcement paper.
Not everyone coming here is an expert, but there's no point jumping up and down on someone's neck for asking a question, especially when you can't even make up your mind why you're doing the jumping.
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I'm definitely not trolling.
I'm simply asking what temperature and pressure is required to produce this molecule above what is at the surface of Venus. I get that you have ruled out lightning.
Sorry if I haven't been clear enough.
There's no single temperature/pressure combination needed to produce the molecule. Its production just gets more effective at high temperatures and pressures compared to other phosphorus-containing species. See https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/506245 (Fig. 4 in particular).
And of course, the atmospheric composition is also important. Jupiter has a highly reduced atmosphere with a large proportion of hydrogen promoting PH3 formation, vs. the oxidised atmosphere of Venus.
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It seems like if you think that a non biological cause on Venus is generating the stuff, you might have to revisit the conclusions as to how gas giants produce it.
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I want to understand the difference between chemistry and biology...
Biology, after all, is just applied chemistry, right?
(https://xkcd.com/435/)
IIUC, the claim is that biology "bundles together" a number of reactions such that more favorable ones dominate, but some non-favorable one happen anyway as part of the bundle.
Otherwise, I don't see how microbes can defeat chemistry.
But by that definition, all that's required is complex chemistry, whereas life typically refers to... Cellular organisms? Just any self replicating molecule?
What is the line or even general divider between complex chemistry and simple life?
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As you can see here it appears only the interiors of hot gas giants like Jupiter & Saturn can produce phosphine in an abiotic way.
In the 1970s, phosphine was discovered in the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn — immensely hot gas giants. Scientists surmised that the molecule was spontaneously thrown together within the bellies of these gas giants and, as Sousa-Silva describes, “violently dredged up by huge, planet-sized convective storms.”
Still, not much was known about phosphine, and Sousa-Silva devoted her graduate work at University College of London to pinning down phosphine’s spectral fingerprint. From her thesis work, she nailed down the exact wavelengths of light that phosphine should absorb, and that would be missing from any atmospheric data if the gas were present.
During her PhD, she began to wonder: Could phosphine be produced not just in the extreme environments of gas giants, but also by life on Earth? At MIT, Sousa-Silva and her colleagues began answering this question.
Phosphine is a molecule made from one phosphorous and three hydrogen atoms, which normally do not prefer to come together. It takes enormous amounts of energy, such as in the extreme environments within Jupiter and Saturn, to smash the atoms with enough force to overcome their natural aversion. The researchers worked out the chemical pathways and thermodynamics involved in multiple scenarios on Earth to see if they could produce enough energy to turn phosphorous into phosphine.
“At some point we were looking at increasingly less-plausible mechanisms, like if tectonic plates were rubbing against each other, could you get a plasma spark that generated phosphine? Or if lightning hit somewhere that had phosphorous, or a meteor had a phosphorous content, could it generate an impact to make phosphine? And we went through several years of this process to figure out that nothing else but life makes detectable amounts of phosphine.”
Phosphine, they found, has no significant false positives, meaning any detection of phosphine is a sure sign of life.
https://news.mit.edu/2019/phosphine-aliens-stink-1218
Here’s the related paper.
https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/ast.2018.1954
From the paper:
In both Jupiter and Saturn, phosphine is found on the high observable layers at abundances (4.8 and 15.9 ppm, respectively) several orders of magnitude higher than those predicted by thermodynamic equilibrium (Fletcher et al., 2009). This overabundance of PH3 occurs because chemical equilibrium timescales are long when compared with convective timescales (Noll and Marley, 1997). PH3 forms in the hotter deep layers of the atmosphere (temperatures ≿ 800 K) and is mixed upward, so that the PH3 inventory at the cloud-top is replenished. In every astronomical body where phosphine has been detected thus far, other than on Earth, there are regions with high enough temperatures for PH3 to be the thermodynamically favored phosphorus species.
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What is the line or even general divider between complex chemistry and simple life?
There is no common scientific definition of life, and we have few insights into the chemistry that gave rise to life on Earth.
That said, life as we know it generally maintains an internal negative entropy or homeostasis (stable chemical and physical conditions that are different from the environment outside the organism) and that the processes that maintain this negative entropy or homeostasis result in dynamics outside the organism that are far from environmental equilibrium (such as an abundance of chemicals like oxygen or phosphine that would not otherwise be present in an atmosphere).
There are other components to a definition of life (growth, reproduction, adaptation, etc.), but in terms of chemistry, internal negative entropy/homeostasis and external disequilibrium in the environment are the two most basic markers. One strategy to look for life beyond Earth is to search for the latter to know where to go prospecting for the former. Although they tripped into it, that’s the approach of the team that found the phosphine on Venus.
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What is the line or even general divider between complex chemistry and simple life?
There is no common scientific definition of life, and we have few insights into the chemistry that gave rise to life on Earth.
That said, life as we know it generally maintains an internal negative entropy or homeostasis (stable chemical and physical conditions that are different from the environment outside the organism) and that the processes that maintain this negative entropy or homeostasis result in dynamics outside the organism that are far from environmental equilibrium (such as an abundance of chemicals like oxygen or phosphine that would not otherwise be present in an atmosphere).
There are other components to a definition of life (growth, reproduction, adaptation, etc.), but in terms of chemistry, internal negative entropy/homeostasis and external disequilibrium in the environment are the two most basic markers. One strategy to look for life beyond Earth is to search for the latter to know where to go prospecting for the former. Although they tripped into it, that’s the approach of the team that found the phosphine on Venus.
Ok this makes a lot of sense - I guess a more precise/complete definition of the "bundle" I mentioned above.
The problem lies in the leap from this definition to the other properties of life, and then to firther concepts such as microbes and spores.
IIUC, the chemical definition above can also fit a self-replicating molecule which most people won't classify as "life".
(Super exciting nevertheless of course - since they've eliminated the expected, what's left, however improbable, has got to be kick ass...)
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I'm definitely not trolling.
I'm simply asking what temperature and pressure is required to produce this molecule above what is at the surface of Venus. I get that you have ruled out lightning.
Sorry if I haven't been clear enough.
I think it’s more the fact you had been given the answer more than once. Especially as it’s a question actually answered in the announcement paper.
Hmm the only statement I can see is
" PH3 is found elsewhere in the Solar System only in the reducing atmospheres of giant planets12,13, where it is produced in deep atmospheric layers at high temperatures and pressures, and dredged upwards by convection14,1"
[...]
Did I miss the answer?
You, and daedalus1, did indeed miss the answer. The numbers after those statements (that I have highlighted) are known as 'citations' or 'references'. If you look at the end of the paper, there will be a list of numbers that correspond to the sources for the data that back up those statements, usually in the form of another paper.
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I'm definitely not trolling.
I'm simply asking what temperature and pressure is required to produce this molecule above what is at the surface of Venus. I get that you have ruled out lightning.
Sorry if I haven't been clear enough.
I think it’s more the fact you had been given the answer more than once. Especially as it’s a question actually answered in the announcement paper.
Hmm the only statement I can see is
" PH3 is found elsewhere in the Solar System only in the reducing atmospheres of giant planets12,13, where it is produced in deep atmospheric layers at high temperatures and pressures, and dredged upwards by convection14,1"
[...]
Did I miss the answer?
You, and daedalus1, did indeed miss the answer. The numbers after those statements (that I have highlighted) are known as 'citations' or 'references'. If you look at the end of the paper, there will be a list of numbers that correspond to the sources for the data that back up those statements, usually in the form of another paper.
The paper I’ve linked to above is one of the citations from the Wikipedia entry on phosphine.
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Here’s a nice handy article outlining the temperature and pressure found deep in Jupiter. These values are well above Venus.
https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/jupiter/en/
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I'm definitely not trolling.
I'm simply asking what temperature and pressure is required to produce this molecule above what is at the surface of Venus. I get that you have ruled out lightning.
Sorry if I haven't been clear enough.
I think it’s more the fact you had been given the answer more than once. Especially as it’s a question actually answered in the announcement paper.
Hmm the only statement I can see is
" PH3 is found elsewhere in the Solar System only in the reducing atmospheres of giant planets12,13, where it is produced in deep atmospheric layers at high temperatures and pressures, and dredged upwards by convection14,1"
[...]
Did I miss the answer?
You, and daedalus1, did indeed miss the answer. The numbers after those statements (that I have highlighted) are known as 'citations' or 'references'. If you look at the end of the paper, there will be a list of numbers that correspond to the sources for the data that back up those statements, usually in the form of another paper.
The paper I’ve linked to above is one of the citations from the Wikipedia entry on phosphine.
You and others have typed a multitude of words about where the answer is lol. Here's a radical idea, why don't you just type it? It would save a lot of trawling and unnecessary posting.
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I'm definitely not trolling.
I'm simply asking what temperature and pressure is required to produce this molecule above what is at the surface of Venus. I get that you have ruled out lightning.
Sorry if I haven't been clear enough.
I think it’s more the fact you had been given the answer more than once. Especially as it’s a question actually answered in the announcement paper.
Hmm the only statement I can see is
" PH3 is found elsewhere in the Solar System only in the reducing atmospheres of giant planets12,13, where it is produced in deep atmospheric layers at high temperatures and pressures, and dredged upwards by convection14,1"
[...]
Did I miss the answer?
You, and daedalus1, did indeed miss the answer. The numbers after those statements (that I have highlighted) are known as 'citations' or 'references'. If you look at the end of the paper, there will be a list of numbers that correspond to the sources for the data that back up those statements, usually in the form of another paper.
The paper I’ve linked to above is one of the citations from the Wikipedia entry on phosphine.
So annoying. You're focused on posting your superiority, and you're alienating readers.
Your words: " Especially as it’s a question actually answered in the announcement paper."
The actual facts: There's a reference in the end to another paper, that may or may not have the answer.
I've followed through to http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/1975ApJ...202L..55B
Kick me, but I don't see the answer there, at least not an obvious one.
Did you actually read those references before dumping on Daedalus for daring to ask a simple question?
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The problem lies in the leap from this definition to the other properties of life, and then to firther concepts such as microbes and spores.
The definition includes microbes. Long before there was multicellular life on Earth, single-celled oceanic algae maintained homeostasis against seawater inside their cells and their photosynthetic metabolisms pumped out enormous amounts of oxygen, creating a chemical disequilibrium in the Earth’s atmosphere that continues to today.
Spores are just seeds.
IIUC, the chemical definition above can also fit a self-replicating molecule which most people won't classify as "life".
Nope, there is no “inside” a molecule in which internal negative entropy or homeostasis can be maintained. This definition of life really requires a cellular membrane or something like it to separate the organism from the external environment. Otherwise, you just have crystals or other products of chemistry.
It may be that getting molecules like RNA to replicate inside lipid membranes was a key step towards abiogenesis (novel creation of life) on Earth, but we really don’t know.
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So what temperatures and pressures exist in Penguin guts?
Some microbe can pull it off, but microbes can't defy the laws of physics.
What makes the microbe special?
Cells concentrate reactants and catalysts, and keeping produced substances below equilibrium levels. Plus, where chemistry focuses mostly on maximizing moles produced per joule put in, biological processes tend to be less efficient in that regard but able to work with infinitessimal amounts of energy and resources.
Those processes are less interesting for commercial applications, where the money comes from. You're more likely to just breed the organism with the reactions you want, than to replicate it. So there are plenty of biological processes we've only scratched the surface of.
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The problem lies in the leap from this definition to the other properties of life, and then to firther concepts such as microbes and spores.
The definition includes microbes. Long before there was multicellular life on Earth, single-celled oceanic algae maintained homeostasis against seawater inside their cells and their photosynthetic metabolisms pumped out enormous amounts of oxygen, creating a chemical disequilibrium in the Earth’s atmosphere that continues to today.
Spores are just seeds.
IIUC, the chemical definition above can also fit a self-replicating molecule which most people won't classify as "life".
Nope, there is no “inside” a molecule in which internal negative entropy or homeostasis can be maintained. This definition of life really requires a cellular membrane or something like it to separate the organism from the external environment. Otherwise, you just have crystals or other products of chemistry.
It may be that getting molecules like RNA to replicate inside lipid membranes was a key step towards abiogenesis (novel creation of life) on Earth, but we really don’t know.
Includes for sure, but does it imply?
The memrane distinction is very interesting to me. (Clearly biochemistry is not my strong side...)
Why won't there be an "inside" with a molecule, chemically speaking? Sort of "inside the sphere of influence of this reaction"?
RNA isn't the simplest self replicating molecule right?
To my limited understanding, self-replication implies that in a sense the self-replicating molecule is "cheating entropy", but it does so by affecting other molecules and overall the entire (wait for it) food chain is entropy positive.
And thus the ability to perhaps create Phosphine.
What you're saying that practically speaking, as far as we know, this requires a selective membrane and a cell body.
Am I understanding you right?
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I'm definitely not trolling.
I'm simply asking what temperature and pressure is required to produce this molecule above what is at the surface of Venus. I get that you have ruled out lightning.
Sorry if I haven't been clear enough.
I think it’s more the fact you had been given the answer more than once. Especially as it’s a question actually answered in the announcement paper.
Hmm the only statement I can see is
" PH3 is found elsewhere in the Solar System only in the reducing atmospheres of giant planets12,13, where it is produced in deep atmospheric layers at high temperatures and pressures, and dredged upwards by convection14,1"
[...]
Did I miss the answer?
You, and daedalus1, did indeed miss the answer. The numbers after those statements (that I have highlighted) are known as 'citations' or 'references'. If you look at the end of the paper, there will be a list of numbers that correspond to the sources for the data that back up those statements, usually in the form of another paper.
The paper I’ve linked to above is one of the citations from the Wikipedia entry on phosphine.
So annoying. You're focused on posting your superiority, and you're alienating readers.
Your words: " Especially as it’s a question actually answered in the announcement paper."
The actual facts: There's a reference in the end to another paper, that may or may not have the answer.
I've followed through to http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/1975ApJ...202L..55B
Kick me, but I don't see the answer there, at least not an obvious one.
Did you actually read those references before dumping on Daedalus for daring to ask a simple question?
Are you being deliberately provocative?
I’ve posted the above references in good faith. I’ve even posted a layman’s article on the temperatures & pressures inside Jupiter above.
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So what temperatures and pressures exist in Penguin guts?
Some microbe can pull it off, but microbes can't defy the laws of physics.
What makes the microbe special?
Cells concentrate reactants and catalysts, and keeping produced substances below equilibrium levels. Plus, where chemistry focuses mostly on maximizing moles produced per joule put in, biological processes tend to be less efficient in that regard but able to work with infinitessimal amounts of energy and resources.
Those processes are less interesting for commercial applications, where the money comes from. You're more likely to just breed the organism with the reactions you want, than to replicate it. So there are plenty of biological processes we've only scratched the surface of.
Ok thx.. this is educating.
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The problem lies in the leap from this definition to the other properties of life, and then to firther concepts such as microbes and spores.
The definition includes microbes. Long before there was multicellular life on Earth, single-celled oceanic algae maintained homeostasis against seawater inside their cells and their photosynthetic metabolisms pumped out enormous amounts of oxygen, creating a chemical disequilibrium in the Earth’s atmosphere that continues to today.
Spores are just seeds.
IIUC, the chemical definition above can also fit a self-replicating molecule which most people won't classify as "life".
Nope, there is no “inside” a molecule in which internal negative entropy or homeostasis can be maintained. This definition of life really requires a cellular membrane or something like it to separate the organism from the external environment. Otherwise, you just have crystals or other products of chemistry.
It may be that getting molecules like RNA to replicate inside lipid membranes was a key step towards abiogenesis (novel creation of life) on Earth, but we really don’t know.
Includes for sure, but does it imply?
The memrane distinction is very interesting to me. (Clearly biochemistry is not my strong side...)
Why won't there be an "inside" with a molecule, chemically speaking? Sort of "inside the sphere of influence of this reaction"?
RNA isn't the simplest self replicating molecule right?
To my limited understanding, self-replication implies that in a sense the self-replicating molecule is "cheating entropy", but it does so by affecting other molecules and overall the entire (wait for it) food chain is entropy positive.
And thus the ability to perhaps create Phosphine.
What you're saying that practically speaking, as far as we know, this requires a selective membrane and a cell body.
Am I understanding you right?
At least we can say that is the solution used by life on Earth... but what if it doesn't work like that on other planets?
In essence, that's the primary problem with figuring out what life might look like elsewhere. If it doesn't look or act like Earth life, we will have extreme difficulty deciding if it's actually life, let alone deciding if a given chemical signature is evidence for life or not.
And that's on top of the fact that scientists don't yet agree on what chemical signatures might represent "life as we know it" to begin with :)
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At least we can say that is the solution used by life on Earth... but what if it doesn't work like that on other planets?
In essence, that's the primary problem with figuring out what life might look like elsewhere. If it doesn't look or act like Earth life, we will have extreme difficulty deciding if it's actually life, let alone deciding if a given chemical signature is evidence for life or not.
And that's on top of the fact that scientists don't yet agree on what chemical signatures might represent "life as we know it" to begin with :)
Yes. To me that's the exciting part. That whatever you call it, it's something we can't figure out even when presented with the evidence of the outcome.
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At least we can say that is the solution used by life on Earth... but what if it doesn't work like that on other planets?
In essence, that's the primary problem with figuring out what life might look like elsewhere. If it doesn't look or act like Earth life, we will have extreme difficulty deciding if it's actually life, let alone deciding if a given chemical signature is evidence for life or not.
And that's on top of the fact that scientists don't yet agree on what chemical signatures might represent "life as we know it" to begin with :)
Yes. To me that's the exciting part. That whatever you call it, it's something we can't figure out even when presented with the evidence of the outcome.
Yep. If it's life, it's likely to be utterly unlike anything on Earth.
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Good overall article from Scientific American.
Conclusion.
The purported phosphine detection is indeed interesting, says Chris McKay, an astrobiologist at NASA’s Ames Research Center. But he questions whether phosphine could actually be considered a biosignature.
The claims of phosphine on Venus hinge on the interpretation of a single feature, a dip in a spectrum of the planet’s atmosphere that was attributed to the gas’s presence. Researchers saw the phosphine line in spectra gathered by two independent facilities: the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array observatory in Chile. That dual detection is a boon for arguments that the finding is genuine, McKay says, but “a robust detection would have several spectral features that are in relative agreement” rather than just one.
Advocates of airborne biology on Venus make a good case that there are no natural sources of phosphine on the planet, McKay adds. Then again, an equally compelling case can be made that because they are impoverished of water and enriched in sulfuric acid, the the so-called habitable cloud zones are, in fact, notat all suitable for life. “So it would be premature to jump to any conclusion,” he says. “Basically, wehave no coherent theory for how phosphine could be present on Venus…. Don’t bet the farm on life just yet. It may not be phosphine. And if it is, it may not be biotic.”
Like McKay, another expert firmly in the “wait and see” contingent is Robert Grimm, a program director in planetary science at SwRI. He sketches out a checklist of what researchers should do next: “Work out how good the observation is. Vet their claim that there can be no abiotic mechanisms. Look at the NASA queue and see what fits,” Grimm says. “If they exist, the bugs have been there for at least hundreds of millions of years. They can wait another decade.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-there-life-on-venus-these-missions-could-find-it/
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I like that "They can wait another decade." from Grimm. In many comments (mostly from the public, not from scientists) there's an idea that we should now drop everything else and focus on Venus to send probes there as soon as possible.
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I like that "They can wait another decade." from Grimm. In many comments (mostly from the public, not from scientists) there's an idea that we should now drop everything else and focus on Venus to send probes there as soon as possible.
This is not unexpected. People have been expecting to find alien life for six decades - since the space age started. It took us too long, despite the fact we're sending missions to Mars every two years. It's true - most of these missions deal with geologic problems and don't look for life, but people haven't stopped asking - what's taking so long?
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I like that "They can wait another decade." from Grimm. In many comments (mostly from the public, not from scientists) there's an idea that we should now drop everything else and focus on Venus to send probes there as soon as possible.
Bugs in other places can also wait another decade. The difference is that life on Venus should be comparatively easy to confirm/rule out. I have yet to see a proposal for a mission that digs through the ice on Enceladus or Europa, an affordable one that is. It's not like Venus doesn't deserve a mission for once either way.
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I like that "They can wait another decade." from Grimm. In many comments (mostly from the public, not from scientists) there's an idea that we should now drop everything else and focus on Venus to send probes there as soon as possible.
Bugs in other places can also wait another decade. The difference is that life on Venus should be comparatively easy to confirm/rule out. I have yet to see a proposal for a mission that digs through the ice on Enceladus or Europa, an affordable one that is. It's not like Venus doesn't deserve a mission for once either way.
Enceladus is getting more buzz than Europa these because you could fly a probe through the cryovolcano plumes and collect samples, which is much easier to do than drilling through dozens of km of ice. That's why scientists are now looking whether there are predictable crypvolcanos on Europa.
If the Vexag group could get people to focus on a single mission to investigate the phosphate origin, I'm sure it can get funding without interrupting anything than the other candidates for that particular budget. If everyone sees it as an opportunity to shoehorn in their idea (It's volcanoes! We need drop probes! An atmospheroc probe! Long term orbiters focused on a particular altitude! We need to see if it's related to the superrotation/UV absorbers, ...) then we won't get a Venus mission any time soon.
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I like that "They can wait another decade." from Grimm. In many comments (mostly from the public, not from scientists) there's an idea that we should now drop everything else and focus on Venus to send probes there as soon as possible.
Bugs in other places can also wait another decade. The difference is that life on Venus should be comparatively easy to confirm/rule out. I have yet to see a proposal for a mission that digs through the ice on Enceladus or Europa, an affordable one that is. It's not like Venus doesn't deserve a mission for once either way.
Enceladus is getting more buzz than Europa these because you could fly a probe through the cryovolcano plumes and collect samples, which is much easier to do than drilling through dozens of km of ice. That's why scientists are now looking whether there are predictable crypvolcanos on Europa.
If the Vexag group could get people to focus on a single mission to investigate the phosphate origin, I'm sure it can get funding without interrupting anything than the other candidates for that particular budget. If everyone sees it as an opportunity to shoehorn in their idea (It's volcanoes! We need drop probes! An atmospheroc probe! Long term orbiters focused on a particular altitude! We need to see if it's related to the superrotation/UV absorbers, ...) then we won't get a Venus mission any time soon.
A mission to Enceladus should certainly be considered as well, however:
- It took 7 years for Cassini to reach the Saturn system, while it only takes a few months to reach Venus.
- Once life is discovered on Venus, it should be much easier to study in detail with follow-up missions, since the ecosystem is directly accessible. Even manned missions into the midst of it are feasible in the foreseeable future.
- If the Discovery program selects DAVINCI+ or a similar mission in 2021, it could launch in 2025 already.
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I like that "They can wait another decade." from Grimm. In many comments (mostly from the public, not from scientists) there's an idea that we should now drop everything else and focus on Venus to send probes there as soon as possible.
Bugs in other places can also wait another decade. The difference is that life on Venus should be comparatively easy to confirm/rule out. I have yet to see a proposal for a mission that digs through the ice on Enceladus or Europa, an affordable one that is. It's not like Venus doesn't deserve a mission for once either way.
Enceladus is getting more buzz than Europa these because you could fly a probe through the cryovolcano plumes and collect samples, which is much easier to do than drilling through dozens of km of ice. That's why scientists are now looking whether there are predictable crypvolcanos on Europa.
If the Vexag group could get people to focus on a single mission to investigate the phosphate origin, I'm sure it can get funding without interrupting anything than the other candidates for that particular budget. If everyone sees it as an opportunity to shoehorn in their idea (It's volcanoes! We need drop probes! An atmospheroc probe! Long term orbiters focused on a particular altitude! We need to see if it's related to the superrotation/UV absorbers, ...) then we won't get a Venus mission any time soon.
A mission to Enceladus should certainly be considered as well, however:
- It took 7 years for Cassini to reach the Saturn system, while it only takes a few months to reach Venus.
That of course is a great reason why we should start an Enceladus mission ASAP...
The good thing with Venus is it's a flexible target; missions of all program scales are feasible, from flagships to cubesats.
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Measurements from (1978!) Pioneer-Venus' LNMS instrument may be consistent with phosphine presence according to this reanalysis in face of the recent results:
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2009/2009.12758.pdf
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The 1978 Pioneer-Venus mission, referenced above, consisted of two spacecraft: and orbiter, and a probe bus with four atmospheric entry probes: one large, three small. The probes all operated successfully, taking various measurements until they impacted the ground; and one probe survived for over an hour post-impact. The orbiter took images and obtained many other sorts of data for 13 (Earth) years.
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Measurements from (1978!) Pioneer-Venus' LNMS instrument may be consistent with phosphine presence according to this reanalysis in face of the recent results:
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2009/2009.12758.pdf
Pretty amazing, when you think about it. Such an old and long foregone mission... and yet, still useful.
Still waiting for somebody doing the same thing with all those Venera probes.
How about Magellan, btw ?
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A mission to Enceladus should certainly be considered as well, however:
- It took 7 years for Cassini to reach the Saturn system, while it only takes a few months to reach Venus.
That of course is a great reason why we should start an Enceladus mission ASAP...
The good thing with Venus is it's a flexible target; missions of all program scales are feasible, from flagships to cubesats.
Touché. But given there's no Enceladus mission candidate for Discovery 15/16, I don't think the two stand in direct competition to each other.
Measurements from (1978!) Pioneer-Venus' LNMS instrument may be consistent with phosphine presence according to this reanalysis in face of the recent results:
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2009/2009.12758.pdf
There are a lot of "consistent"s in this paper. Not sure what to make of it.
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Measurements from (1978!) Pioneer-Venus' LNMS instrument may be consistent with phosphine presence according to this reanalysis in face of the recent results:
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2009/2009.12758.pdf
There are a lot of "consistent"s in this paper. Not sure what to make of it.
Nothing definitive of course, but note that the VeGA probe's results also found measurements "consistent" with some form of phosphorous at mid-altitudes.
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Measurements from (1978!) Pioneer-Venus' LNMS instrument may be consistent with phosphine presence according to this reanalysis in face of the recent results:
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2009/2009.12758.pdf
There are a lot of "consistent"s in this paper. Not sure what to make of it.
Nothing definitive of course, but note that the VeGA probe's results also found measurements "consistent" with some form of phosphorous at mid-altitudes.
In this video, which I’ve already posted in this thread, but I post again for ease of reference it is mention that related results where found by one of the Soviet lander missions.
https://youtu.be/aDL0jbOnTtA
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How about Magellan, btw ?
Magellan was all radio science: synthetic aperture radar mapping of the surface, radar altimetry, and radiometry (measuring thermal flux at radio wavelengths). It had no instruments that could measure the presence of a particular gas in the atmosphere.
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The author of this new paper seems sceptical of life on Venus. Especially as according to his analysis it would have to survive in the atmosphere for one billion years.
Venus might not be a sweltering, waterless hellscape today, if Jupiter hadn't altered its orbit around the sun, according to new UC Riverside research.
Recently, scientists generated much excitement by discovering a gas in the clouds above Venus that may indicate the presence of life. The gas, phosphine, is typically produced by microbes, and Kane says it is possible that the gas represents "the last surviving species on a planet that went through a dramatic change in its environment."
For that to be the case, however, Kane notes the microbes would have had to sustain their presence in the sulfuric acid clouds above Venus for roughly a billion years since Venus last had surface liquid water—a difficult to imagine though not impossible scenario.
"There are probably a lot of other processes that could produce the gas that haven't yet been explored," Kane said.
Ultimately, Kane says it is important to understand what happened to Venus, a planet that was once likely habitable and now has surface temperatures of up to 800 degrees Fahrenheit.
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-venus-habitable-today-jupiter.html
Here’s the paper:
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/abae63
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That is assuming life originated on Venus, may have been carried there by meteorite. Which is another theory I've heard.
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It is also true that Earth has a measurable biosphere in pretty much all layers of its atmosphere, and likely has for billions of years. Why would it have been more difficult for Venus to develop the same, especially if it originally had a surface biosphere that got cooked out due to the runaway greenhouse effect? Those extremophiles which could survive over the gradual heat-up of the planet would have migrated, via air currents, to those layers in which they could flourish.
There may not be a huge and diverse biosphere there, it may just be the Venusian form of tardigrades. and the greater likelihood is still it's some kind of exotic chemistry. But the idea that there *has* to be a surface biosphere continuously extant for there to be any possibility of a remnant biosphere existing in livable atmospheric regions is, I think, tremendously terracentric. And blindered.
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On the biggest of Pioneer’s probes, an instrument called the Large Probe Neutral Mass Spectrometer (LNMS) looked for gases in the atmosphere, with mission scientists focusing on molecules such as carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and argon that were known to be abundant there. After taking another look at the data, however, Rakesh Mogul, a professor of biological chemistry at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, posits that scientists on the mission underestimated their instrument, which may have spotted trace amounts of other molecules—including, excitingly, phosphine.
Not everyone is convinced. Planetary scientist Mikhail Zolotov of Arizona State University argues that the Pioneer data are unlikely to be accurate enough to reliably detect phosphine—instead of, for instance, a more mundane mixture of phosphorus-rich gases and hydrogen sulfide. Furthermore, he says, if the LNMS detection is genuine, it suggests a much higher abundance of the gas than Sousa-Silva’s team found—so much higher, in fact, that it would be incompatible with the mere traces suggested by the recent discovery. If Mogul and his colleagues have correctly interpreted the Pioneer data, Zolotov says, “we’d expect a much higher concentration of phosphine than measured by astronomers, which is also a red flag.”
So far, Mogul and his collaborators have only been able to access a snippet of information from the mission, corresponding to altitudes between 50 and 60 kilometers above Venus. The probe, however, actually took data from an altitude of 90 kilometers all the way down to the surface of the planet. If these data could be analyzed, and if the presence of phosphine could be confirmed, they could reveal more information about the gas’s atmospheric distribution—potentially a vital clue in working out its origin. Unfortunately, although a physical copy of this information is stored in the NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive (NSSDCA) at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, access to the archive is currently restricted because of COVID-19.
“We do have some of the data from that experiment, [but] unfortunately it is archived on microfilm and is not easily accessible,” says David Williams, acting head of the NSSDCA. “We are currently trying to get permission for one of our folks to go in to digitize that microfilm, as we have already received inquiries about it. With luck, we may be able to start on it this week.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hidden-in-plain-sight-has-evidence-for-life-on-venus-been-in-our-grasp-for-40-years/
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The more, the merrier ! Vega 2 first, then Pioneer-Venus, and (perhaps) the Veneras.
Long dead probes teaming with present and future probes, to confirm a telescopic discovery. Note that they will also check old telescope data.
Reminds me, when they checked Hipparcos star parallax data from 1989-91 to see if they could find (a posteriori, of course) exoplanets seen and identified a decade later through better instruments. And surely enough, they found a handful of them.
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Reminds me, when they checked Hipparcos star parallax data from 1989-91 to see if they could find (a posteriori, of course) exoplanets seen and identified a decade later through better instruments. And surely enough, they found a handful of them.
They did? I know some transits have been seen in Hipparcos photometry data, but I'm not aware of any parallax detections. Beta Pictoris b was seen with combined Gaia and Hipparcos data, but I don't see how Hipparcos parallaxes alone could be accurate enough.
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I have the paper somewhere.
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It is also true that Earth has a measurable biosphere in pretty much all layers of its atmosphere, and likely has for billions of years. Why would it have been more difficult for Venus to develop the same, especially if it originally had a surface biosphere that got cooked out due to the runaway greenhouse effect? Those extremophiles which could survive over the gradual heat-up of the planet would have migrated, via air currents, to those layers in which they could flourish.
There may not be a huge and diverse biosphere there, it may just be the Venusian form of tardigrades. and the greater likelihood is still it's some kind of exotic chemistry. But the idea that there *has* to be a surface biosphere continuously extant for there to be any possibility of a remnant biosphere existing in livable atmospheric regions is, I think, tremendously terracentric. And blindered.
I think the problem is that "migrating upwards from the surface" requires a very large and sudden leap.
Life forms that evolved on the surface can't just gradually become ones that have a lifecycle that is completely airborne. Being able to do so requires a complete redesign, which is hard to achieve with evolution.
Instead it's easier to imagine an airborne lifeform that merely migrated along with its "habitable zone" to different altitudes, and maybe mutated with time to shift the boundaries of the habitable zone in response to changes in it (such as increasing concentrations of CO2)
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It is also true that Earth has a measurable biosphere in pretty much all layers of its atmosphere, and likely has for billions of years.
As far as we know, all of the organisms in Earth's atmosphere come from the surface; it's not like there's a disconnected atmospheric biosphere. See https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/01/microbes-survive-and-maybe-thrive-high-atmosphere
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It is also true that Earth has a measurable biosphere in pretty much all layers of its atmosphere, and likely has for billions of years.
As far as we know, all of the organisms in Earth's atmosphere come from the surface; it's not like there's a disconnected atmospheric biosphere. See https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/01/microbes-survive-and-maybe-thrive-high-atmosphere
Good point. Likewise, the vast majority of seafloor organisms are dependent on marine snow...i.e. particles from the surface, usually in the form of dead sunlit-surface life. Even specialized organisms turn out to be part of a larger ecosystem.
I would still favor sending missions to confirm the new phosphine discovery and if the ultraviolet absorber are both biological phenomenon. I'd be willing to lean towards the fact they might be. Of course, Venus is largely a blank slate for exploration.
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It is also true that Earth has a measurable biosphere in pretty much all layers of its atmosphere, and likely has for billions of years.
As far as we know, all of the organisms in Earth's atmosphere come from the surface; it's not like there's a disconnected atmospheric biosphere. See https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/01/microbes-survive-and-maybe-thrive-high-atmosphere
But it’s my understanding that Venus’s atmosphere is stable over long periods at that depth unlike Earth’s.
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It is also true that Earth has a measurable biosphere in pretty much all layers of its atmosphere, and likely has for billions of years.
As far as we know, all of the organisms in Earth's atmosphere come from the surface; it's not like there's a disconnected atmospheric biosphere. See https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/01/microbes-survive-and-maybe-thrive-high-atmosphere
But it’s my understanding that Venus’s atmosphere is stable over long periods at that depth unlike Earth’s.
That would be an assumption rather than an understanding. We don't know Venus in that much detail as far as I'm aware
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It is also true that Earth has a measurable biosphere in pretty much all layers of its atmosphere, and likely has for billions of years.
As far as we know, all of the organisms in Earth's atmosphere come from the surface; it's not like there's a disconnected atmospheric biosphere. See https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/01/microbes-survive-and-maybe-thrive-high-atmosphere
But it’s my understanding that Venus’s atmosphere is stable over long periods at that depth unlike Earth’s.
That would be an assumption rather than an understanding. We don't know Venus in that much detail as far as I'm aware
If that’s the case why did I see a number of experts make statements along those lines then at the time of the announcement?
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Throwing my little 2 cts:
- Clouds on Earth are ephemerals (merely minutes), so life can't develop in them
- Clouds on Venus are extremely thick and they have been thick enough to permanently mask the surface for a very long time. So "cloud life" has far better long term survival odds on Venus than on Earth
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It is also true that Earth has a measurable biosphere in pretty much all layers of its atmosphere, and likely has for billions of years.
As far as we know, all of the organisms in Earth's atmosphere come from the surface; it's not like there's a disconnected atmospheric biosphere. See https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/01/microbes-survive-and-maybe-thrive-high-atmosphere
But it’s my understanding that Venus’s atmosphere is stable over long periods at that depth unlike Earth’s.
That would be an assumption rather than an understanding. We don't know Venus in that much detail as far as I'm aware
If that’s the case why did I see a number of experts make statements along those lines then at the time of the announcement?
I don't recall hearing such statements. We may also need to define exactly what we mean by stable. In this case, stable does not mean stationary.
What I recall hearing, was that there are believed to be Hadley cells which may have persisted for many years, in which these organisms may be circulating. The clouds within the cells are constantly moving, and will mix with other layers to a greater or lesser extent.
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It is also true that Earth has a measurable biosphere in pretty much all layers of its atmosphere, and likely has for billions of years.
As far as we know, all of the organisms in Earth's atmosphere come from the surface; it's not like there's a disconnected atmospheric biosphere. See https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/01/microbes-survive-and-maybe-thrive-high-atmosphere
Good point. Likewise, the vast majority of seafloor organisms are dependent on marine snow...i.e. particles from the surface, usually in the form of dead sunlit-surface life. Even specialized organisms turn out to be part of a larger ecosystem.
I would still favor sending missions to confirm the new phosphine discovery and if the ultraviolet absorber are both biological phenomenon. I'd be willing to lean towards the fact they might be. Of course, Venus is largely a blank slate for exploration.
There are numerous extremophile populations that are entirely or almost entirely separate from the active lifecycle of other biospheres (e.g. autotrophic endoliths).
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It is also true that Earth has a measurable biosphere in pretty much all layers of its atmosphere, and likely has for billions of years.
As far as we know, all of the organisms in Earth's atmosphere come from the surface; it's not like there's a disconnected atmospheric biosphere. See https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/01/microbes-survive-and-maybe-thrive-high-atmosphere
But it’s my understanding that Venus’s atmosphere is stable over long periods at that depth unlike Earth’s.
That would be an assumption rather than an understanding. We don't know Venus in that much detail as far as I'm aware
If that’s the case why did I see a number of experts make statements along those lines then at the time of the announcement?
I don't recall hearing such statements. We may also need to define exactly what we mean by stable. In this case, stable does not mean stationary.
What I recall hearing, was that there are believed to be Hadley cells which may have persisted for many years, in which these organisms may be circulating. The clouds within the cells are constantly moving, and will mix with other layers to a greater or lesser extent.
Same. And I think we should differentiate between stable on short tim scales (allowing them to exist) and stable on long time scales (allowing them to evolve)
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It is also true that Earth has a measurable biosphere in pretty much all layers of its atmosphere, and likely has for billions of years.
As far as we know, all of the organisms in Earth's atmosphere come from the surface; it's not like there's a disconnected atmospheric biosphere. See https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/01/microbes-survive-and-maybe-thrive-high-atmosphere
But it’s my understanding that Venus’s atmosphere is stable over long periods at that depth unlike Earth’s.
That would be an assumption rather than an understanding. We don't know Venus in that much detail as far as I'm aware
If that’s the case why did I see a number of experts make statements along those lines then at the time of the announcement?
I don't recall hearing such statements. We may also need to define exactly what we mean by stable. In this case, stable does not mean stationary.
What I recall hearing, was that there are believed to be Hadley cells which may have persisted for many years, in which these organisms may be circulating. The clouds within the cells are constantly moving, and will mix with other layers to a greater or lesser extent.
I didn’t mean stationary, not sure why you would think that, they were talking in terms that those more ‘habitable’ layers of the atmosphere persist over extremely long periods of time.
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It is also true that Earth has a measurable biosphere in pretty much all layers of its atmosphere, and likely has for billions of years.
As far as we know, all of the organisms in Earth's atmosphere come from the surface; it's not like there's a disconnected atmospheric biosphere. See https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/01/microbes-survive-and-maybe-thrive-high-atmosphere
But it’s my understanding that Venus’s atmosphere is stable over long periods at that depth unlike Earth’s.
That would be an assumption rather than an understanding. We don't know Venus in that much detail as far as I'm aware
If that’s the case why did I see a number of experts make statements along those lines then at the time of the announcement?
I don't recall hearing such statements. We may also need to define exactly what we mean by stable. In this case, stable does not mean stationary.
What I recall hearing, was that there are believed to be Hadley cells which may have persisted for many years, in which these organisms may be circulating. The clouds within the cells are constantly moving, and will mix with other layers to a greater or lesser extent.
I didn’t mean stationary, not sure why you would think that, they were talking in terms that those more ‘habitable’ layers of the atmosphere persist over extremely long periods of time.
Relevant statement highlighted. Habitable in terms of temperature and pressure. By those measures, Earth's atmosphere is also stable. The assertion seems to be that the atmosphere of Venus is somehow more stable than Earth, but I don't see the evidence for that (nor any claims by the researchers of that).
The only claim the researchers make is that there are regions of Venus atmosphere that are stable enough, in terms of temperature and pressure, to support life over a persistent period, which is plausible.
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It is also true that Earth has a measurable biosphere in pretty much all layers of its atmosphere, and likely has for billions of years.
As far as we know, all of the organisms in Earth's atmosphere come from the surface; it's not like there's a disconnected atmospheric biosphere. See https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/01/microbes-survive-and-maybe-thrive-high-atmosphere
But it’s my understanding that Venus’s atmosphere is stable over long periods at that depth unlike Earth’s.
That would be an assumption rather than an understanding. We don't know Venus in that much detail as far as I'm aware
If that’s the case why did I see a number of experts make statements along those lines then at the time of the announcement?
That's a bit hard to know the context of, but likely because you have to make assumptions about certain things to maka a point. That's how you establish falsifiable things you can look for.
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It is also true that Earth has a measurable biosphere in pretty much all layers of its atmosphere, and likely has for billions of years.
As far as we know, all of the organisms in Earth's atmosphere come from the surface; it's not like there's a disconnected atmospheric biosphere. See https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/01/microbes-survive-and-maybe-thrive-high-atmosphere
But it’s my understanding that Venus’s atmosphere is stable over long periods at that depth unlike Earth’s.
That would be an assumption rather than an understanding. We don't know Venus in that much detail as far as I'm aware
If that’s the case why did I see a number of experts make statements along those lines then at the time of the announcement?
That's a bit hard to know the context of, but likely because you have to make assumptions about certain things to maka a point. That's how you establish falsifiable things you can look for.
I am pretty sure what they meant was that the so called habitable layer could persist in the Venusian atmosphere over extremely long time spans.
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Currently only a rumour, but I though I would post it here.
https://twitter.com/acooray/status/1313512326591467520
https://twitter.com/acooray/status/1313588865559478273
The source is reliable and is a co-I on SPICA, one of the competing proposals for ESA's M5 mission slot.
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Currently only a rumour, but I though I would post it here.
https://twitter.com/acooray/status/1313512326591467520
https://twitter.com/acooray/status/1313588865559478273
The source is reliable and is a co-I on SPICA, one of the competing proposals for ESA's M5 mission slot.
For this to be anything other than speculation, both ESA and NASA would have had to make decisions on missions in competition months before their planned dates and before critical proposal reviews had been completed (as I understand the process).
I expect that the two agencies are considering doing EnVision jointly - NASA has already said it's open to supplying the SAR instrument - and would be talking about options. Perhaps this is what Cooray is hearing.
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Cross-posting due to the potential relevance to this announcement:
Heads up for the Venusian flyby:
https://twitter.com/esascience/status/1313776877467729920
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Looking for pieces of Venus? Try the moon
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201007123033.htm
We search for Mars meteorites (and life signs) in Antartica. Maybe there are Venus meteorites around as well. Fun question on how to recognize them, and fun thought of how to rationalize science on the Moon.
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Another team observing Venus in the thermal infrared has failed to detect phosphine, suggesting an upper limit on concentrations several times lower than that suggested by observations at millimeter wavelengths.
http://astrobiology.com/2020/10/a-stringent-upper-limit-of-the-ph3-phosphine-abundance-at-the-cloud-top-of-venus.html (http://astrobiology.com/2020/10/a-stringent-upper-limit-of-the-ph3-phosphine-abundance-at-the-cloud-top-of-venus.html)
Following the announcement of the detection of phosphine (PH3) in the cloud deck of Venus at millimeter wavelengths, we have searched for other possible signatures of this molecule in the infrared range.
Since 2012, we have been observing Venus in the thermal infrared at various wavelengths to monitor the behavior of SO2 and H2O at the cloud top. We have identified a spectral interval recorded in March 2015 around 950 cm−1 where a PH3 transition is present.
From the absence of any feature at this frequency, we derive, on the disk-integrated spectrum, a 3-σ upper limit of 5 ppbv for the PH3 mixing ratio, assumed to be constant throughout the atmosphere. This limit is 4 times lower than the disk-integrated mixing ratio derived at millimeter wavelengths.
Our result brings a strong constraint on the maximum PH3 abundance at the cloud top and in the lower mesosphere of Venus.
T. Encrenaz (1), T. K. Greathouse (2), E. Marcq (3), T. Widemann (1), B. Bézard (1), T. Fouchet (1), R. Giles (2), H. Sagawa (4), J. Greaves (5), C. Sousa-Silva (6) ((1) LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, PSL Université, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Université de Paris, (2) SwRI, (3) LATMOS/IPSL, UVSQ Université Paris-Saclay, Sorbonne Université, CNRS, (4) Kyoto Sanyo University, (5) School of Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University, (6) Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Comments: Astronomy & Astrophysics, in press
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:2010.07817 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2010.07817v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Bruno Bézard
[v1] Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:11:37 UTC (805 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.07817
Astrobiology, Astrochemistry,
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Reanalysis of ALMA-only data appears to disfavor the detection to just 2 sigma significance (from 15, but the fitting analysis had produced false absorption lines in other areas of the spectrum of up to 10 sigma):
https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.09761
This is not yet peer-reviewed although it appears solid. The jury is still very much out on this one.
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Reanalysis of ALMA-only data appears to disfavor the detection to just 2 sigma significance (from 15, but the fitting analysis had produced false absorption lines in other areas of the spectrum of up to 10 sigma):
https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.09761
This is not yet peer-reviewed although it appears solid. The jury is still very much out on this one.
Just to add that the group from Leiden/Groningen behind the latest paper is very well known in this field, so their comments certainly carry some weight.
Also, a lot of people I've talked to have been sceptical about the data reduction in the original paper, in particular the 12th degree polynomial baseline subtraction is "bold", to say the least.
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As they say “if you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything”. I think the original authors jumped the gun a little.
I guess that high profile studies are always going to have the problem of the imagination running away, when all that is needed is a "we think we found something, can anyone confirm?".
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Like with the old adage that the best way to get the right answer on the internet is to first post the wrong answer and then await the angry corrections: The best way to get others to investigate your measurements with their instruments is to make a bold claim. Those who thing "gee wow, I hope that's right!" have further incentive to investigate, but you also catch the "that's nonsense, and I'm going to prove them wrong!" group as well.
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As they say “if you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything”. I think the original authors jumped the gun a little.
I guess that high profile studies are always going to have the problem of the imagination running away, when all that is needed is a "we think we found something, can anyone confirm?".
Don't conflate the paper with the press coverage.
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As they say “if you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything”. I think the original authors jumped the gun a little.
I guess that high profile studies are always going to have the problem of the imagination running away, when all that is needed is a "we think we found something, can anyone confirm?".
Don't conflate the paper with the press coverage.
I didn't. Speculation about possible life in the Venusian atmosphere came from the study authors [1]. They didn't need to do that. And, I think they chose to hold a "media briefing" to broadcast the news to the world, so you can hardly blame the media for digging up an obscure paper and blowing it up.
[1] https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2020.2244 "The Venusian Lower Atmosphere Haze as a Depot for Desiccated Microbial Life: A Proposed Life Cycle for Persistence of the Venusian Aerial Biosphere"
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As they say “if you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything”. I think the original authors jumped the gun a little.
I guess that high profile studies are always going to have the problem of the imagination running away, when all that is needed is a "we think we found something, can anyone confirm?".
Don't conflate the paper with the press coverage.
I didn't. Speculation about possible life in the Venusian atmosphere came from the study authors [1]. They didn't need to do that. And, I think they chose to hold a "media briefing" to broadcast the news to the world, so you can hardly blame the media for digging up an obscure paper and blowing it up.
[1] https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2020.2244 "The Venusian Lower Atmosphere Haze as a Depot for Desiccated Microbial Life: A Proposed Life Cycle for Persistence of the Venusian Aerial Biosphere"
And you’re cutting the media coverage too much slack, as the media are hardly blameless in this.
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As this article states this new research does not invalidate the idea of life on Venus or the Phosphine detection.
Scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics scanned Venus for signs of phosphine as low as five parts per billion and still found nothing, according to the preprint research they shared online on Monday. But variations in phosphine could actually be more evidence that the gas is a byproduct of biological life, they said.
“If the phosphine came from life, we would expect enormous local variability,” study author Clara Sousa-Silva, who also contributed to the original phosphine study, told New Scientist. “On Earth, where it does come from living organisms, it’s extremely variable. In most of the atmosphere, there’s almost none of it, but above the places where it’s being created, there’s much more.”
Back And Forth
Sousa-Silva reiterated that there could be phosphine and even life on Venus hiding under the radar, but we’ll need to change our approach to finding it. But it’s also possible that the original discovery was just some error.
“This isn’t a big gotcha,” she told New Scientist. “It’s really interesting and it tells us a lot about what we have to do for future work.”
https://futurism.com/the-byte/researchers-claim-life-molecules-venus-perhaps-error
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And you’re cutting the media coverage too much slack, as the media are hardly blameless in this.
It's 2020, no one can claim to be naive enough to not know how the media works. Any researcher with a significant announcement knows 100% in advance that the media will blow it out of proportion if they can. I'm not buying the "blame the media" excuse.
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As they say “if you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything”. I think the original authors jumped the gun a little.
I guess that high profile studies are always going to have the problem of the imagination running away, when all that is needed is a "we think we found something, can anyone confirm?".
Don't conflate the paper with the press coverage.
I didn't. Speculation about possible life in the Venusian atmosphere came from the study authors [1]. They didn't need to do that. And, I think they chose to hold a "media briefing" to broadcast the news to the world, so you can hardly blame the media for digging up an obscure paper and blowing it up.
[1] https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2020.2244 "The Venusian Lower Atmosphere Haze as a Depot for Desiccated Microbial Life: A Proposed Life Cycle for Persistence of the Venusian Aerial Biosphere"
And you’re cutting the media coverage too much slack, as the media are hardly blameless in this.
Demonstrate please. FR showed the citation and clear quotes and behaviors. You just blame the media - what wrong did "the media" do?
One can debate the mathematical treatment of the data and how certain they are about Phosphine being there to begin with, but then the authors went on to 100% speculate about life forms, and then held a press release about it. What exactly should "the media" have done?
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As they say “if you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything”. I think the original authors jumped the gun a little.
I guess that high profile studies are always going to have the problem of the imagination running away, when all that is needed is a "we think we found something, can anyone confirm?".
Don't conflate the paper with the press coverage.
I didn't. Speculation about possible life in the Venusian atmosphere came from the study authors [1]. They didn't need to do that. And, I think they chose to hold a "media briefing" to broadcast the news to the world, so you can hardly blame the media for digging up an obscure paper and blowing it up.
[1] https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2020.2244 "The Venusian Lower Atmosphere Haze as a Depot for Desiccated Microbial Life: A Proposed Life Cycle for Persistence of the Venusian Aerial Biosphere"
And you’re cutting the media coverage too much slack, as the media are hardly blameless in this.
Demonstrate please. FR showed the citation and clear quotes and behaviors. You just blame the media - what wrong did "the media" do?
One can debate the mathematical treatment of the data and how certain they are about Phosphine being there to begin with, but then the authors went on to 100% speculate about life forms, and then held a press release about it. What exactly should "the media" have done?
I don’t know maybe actually read the original paper that doesn’t really even talk particularly about life more about an interesting chemical result. There’s a little too much of the blame the scientists in this discussion. Considering we are living in a world of pandemic deniers I don’t think it helps to open up yet another front on scientists on this topic.
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As they say “if you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything”. I think the original authors jumped the gun a little.
I guess that high profile studies are always going to have the problem of the imagination running away, when all that is needed is a "we think we found something, can anyone confirm?".
Don't conflate the paper with the press coverage.
I didn't. Speculation about possible life in the Venusian atmosphere came from the study authors [1]. They didn't need to do that. And, I think they chose to hold a "media briefing" to broadcast the news to the world, so you can hardly blame the media for digging up an obscure paper and blowing it up.
[1] https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2020.2244 "The Venusian Lower Atmosphere Haze as a Depot for Desiccated Microbial Life: A Proposed Life Cycle for Persistence of the Venusian Aerial Biosphere"
And you’re cutting the media coverage too much slack, as the media are hardly blameless in this.
Demonstrate please. FR showed the citation and clear quotes and behaviors. You just blame the media - what wrong did "the media" do?
One can debate the mathematical treatment of the data and how certain they are about Phosphine being there to begin with, but then the authors went on to 100% speculate about life forms, and then held a press release about it. What exactly should "the media" have done?
I don’t know maybe actually read the original paper that doesn’t really even talk particularly about life more about an interesting chemical result. There’s a little too much of the blame the scientists in this discussion. Considering we are living in a world of pandemic deniers I don’t think it helps to open up yet another front on scientists on this topic.
This is not about a generic "defend the scientists" movement. That's misplaced.
This is about this particular paper and these particular scientists and their particular course of action.
Blaming the media for repeating what the scientists chose to broadcast is not helping science.
It puts you in the same boat as other people who blame the media for reporting facts.
The media didn't invent the speculation of life on Venus. It's in the paper, it's in the title of the paper.
The media covered the paper pretty well IMO, and then covered the reactions of various bodies (from space agencies to rocket companies) to it.
If anyone jumped the gun here, it's a certain portion of the science community, no one else.
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It brings back memories of the faster than light neutrino incident a few years ago.
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A new (non-peer-reviewed yet, and intended as an editor-approved response, but probably definitive?) nail in the coffin of this purported discovery:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.14305
It appears the majority of the blame is on the polynomial fitting of the raw signal, needed to distinguish whether the peak is real or simply a signal artifact. This fitting appears not to have been adequate for the job, and in fact the rationale for its use was weak. Now, it appears the source of the peak remainder is contamination from an SO2 sulfur dioxide spectral line. The authors of this rebuttal are asking for retraction of the original article.
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A new (non-peer-reviewed yet, and intended as an editor-approved response, but probably definitive?) nail in the coffin of this purported discovery:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.14305
It appears the majority of the blame is on the polynomial fitting of the raw signal, needed to distinguish whether the peak is real or simply a signal artifact. This fitting appears not to have been adequate for the job, and in fact the rationale for its use was weak. Now, it appears the source of the peak remainder is contamination from an SO2 sulfur dioxide spectral line. The authors of this rebuttal are asking for retraction of the original article.
They may well be right, but they really didn't need to be that condescending...
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A new (non-peer-reviewed yet, and intended as an editor-approved response, but probably definitive?) nail in the coffin of this purported discovery:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.14305
It appears the majority of the blame is on the polynomial fitting of the raw signal, needed to distinguish whether the peak is real or simply a signal artifact. This fitting appears not to have been adequate for the job, and in fact the rationale for its use was weak. Now, it appears the source of the peak remainder is contamination from an SO2 sulfur dioxide spectral line. The authors of this rebuttal are asking for retraction of the original article.
They may well be right, but they really didn't need to be that condescending...
Many (myself included) are finding objection to both the title, the request for retraction in the conclusions and the general tone of this article. Worth noting the rebuttal's authors are backing away from the urging towards retraction and claim it was included only as a reference to the writing guidelines of the targeted journal's section for the editor, not as part of the article itself.
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A new (non-peer-reviewed yet, and intended as an editor-approved response, but probably definitive?) nail in the coffin of this purported discovery:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.14305
It appears the majority of the blame is on the polynomial fitting of the raw signal, needed to distinguish whether the peak is real or simply a signal artifact. This fitting appears not to have been adequate for the job, and in fact the rationale for its use was weak. Now, it appears the source of the peak remainder is contamination from an SO2 sulfur dioxide spectral line. The authors of this rebuttal are asking for retraction of the original article.
They may well be right, but they really didn't need to be that condescending...
Many (myself included) are finding objection to both the title, the request for retraction in the conclusions and the general tone of this article. Worth noting the rebuttal's authors are backing away from the urging towards retraction and claim it was included only as a reference to the writing guidelines of the targeted journal's section for the editor, not as part of the article itself.
Yes, the authors have now issued an apology: https://twitter.com/gerolvillanueva/status/1321579334243667972?s=20
Though with that many authors, one would hope that at least one of them had considered whether the tone was appropriate before arxiving the paper.
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If the facts of the matter are correct, then retraction may be the honorable thing to do, rather than clinging to an undefendable opinion.
OTOH, demanding that the honorable thing be done is... not honorable... It has to come from the original authors.
OTGH, discussing the merits of such demands is an even more egregious waste of time, a meta^2 discussion.
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A new (non-peer-reviewed yet, and intended as an editor-approved response, but probably definitive?) nail in the coffin of this purported discovery:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.14305
It appears the majority of the blame is on the polynomial fitting of the raw signal, needed to distinguish whether the peak is real or simply a signal artifact. This fitting appears not to have been adequate for the job, and in fact the rationale for its use was weak. Now, it appears the source of the peak remainder is contamination from an SO2 sulfur dioxide spectral line. The authors of this rebuttal are asking for retraction of the original article.
They may well be right, but they really didn't need to be that condescending...
Many (myself included) are finding objection to both the title, the request for retraction in the conclusions and the general tone of this article. Worth noting the rebuttal's authors are backing away from the urging towards retraction and claim it was included only as a reference to the writing guidelines of the targeted journal's section for the editor, not as part of the article itself.
Yes, the authors have now issued an apology: https://twitter.com/gerolvillanueva/status/1321579334243667972?s=20
Though with that many authors, one would hope that at least one of them had considered whether the tone was appropriate before arxiving the paper.
To be blunt they’ve made themselves like a bunch of classless individuals and any point they may or may not had has been lost in the disgraceful writing of their paper.
https://twitter.com/chrisenorth/status/1321611672298160128
https://twitter.com/abbybeall/status/1318950262644629505
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Just asking in passing... Are arXiv articles peer-reviewed, or not ? I swear they are not, but I'm certainly wrong...
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Just asking in passing... Are arXiv articles peer-reviewed, or not ? I swear they are not, but I'm certainly wrong...
By default, no. Of course some articles are only put there after they have been accepted to a journal, so some of the articles there have already gone through a review.
Not that peer review means _that_ much. I mean, the original phosphine on Venus article did go through a review...
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the paper by Therèse Encrenaz et al. "A stringent upper limit of the PH3 abundance at the cloud top of Venus" is now available on the peer-reviewed journal Astronomy & Astrophysics
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2020/11/aa39559-20/aa39559-20.html
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I have to wonder if the paper discussed up thread that needed an apology issued afterwards would have been written using such language in the first place if the lead scientist on the paper they were responding to had been a man rather than woman.
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You have to be very cautious about coming to too many conclusions from one paper. Very unscientific.....get an overall picture from several scientific studies.
As I said much earlier in this thread, I was very sceptical, but was shot down by (more?) learned people on here.
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Not that peer review means _that_ much. I mean, the original phosphine on Venus article did go through a review...
Peer review has its limitations. But it also has value. I work for a well-known organization that uses peer review extensively and I could talk your ear off about the pros and the cons (actually, most of them are not even "cons," but limitations and weakness, with a few problems that could be corrected with effort). But the pros greatly outweigh the cons. Until somebody comes up with a better system, this is what we've got.
That said, what we're seeing here in this Venus case is also how science works, and how it is supposed to work, and why science is, for lack of a better word, good. You put your data and your theories out in public and there's a process for checking and correcting them. That's what science is.
I don't deny that it has some value, but IMO general public puts too way much weight on something being peer reviewed or not. I've done my fair share of reviewing and had papers reviewed, and the more I've seen, the less faith I have in the system. Formal peer review of an article is done by only a few people (in astrophysics usually only one, though I'm not sure about Nature Astronomy) and, as we've seen in this case, a "big" paper will be reviewed far more thoroughly by many more people after it's been published (not necessarily in a journal, for many subfields almost everything is on arxiv months before formal publication). Formal peer review is maybe more important for "dull" papers; otherwise there might not be anybody besides the authors who reads the article in at least some detail.
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Not that peer review means _that_ much. I mean, the original phosphine on Venus article did go through a review...
Peer review has its limitations. But it also has value. I work for a well-known organization that uses peer review extensively and I could talk your ear off about the pros and the cons (actually, most of them are not even "cons," but limitations and weakness, with a few problems that could be corrected with effort). But the pros greatly outweigh the cons. Until somebody comes up with a better system, this is what we've got.
That said, what we're seeing here in this Venus case is also how science works, and how it is supposed to work, and why science is, for lack of a better word, good. You put your data and your theories out in public and there's a process for checking and correcting them. That's what science is.
Completely agree.
Sorry to use on off topic example but it is also extremely vital in not just esoteric subjects but also in developing a vaccine for COVID-19. And where science is showing which treatment methods are correct to use and is therefore literally saving many, many lives.
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another arxiv paper with more doubts
The statistical reliability of 267 GHz JCMT observations of Venus
https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.15188
In the light of the recent announcement of the discovery of the potential biosignature phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus I present an independent reanalysis of the original JCMT data to assess the statistical reliability of the detection. Two line detection methods are explored, low order polynomial fits and higher order multiple polynomial fits. It is found that, similar to other reanalyses of ALMA Venus spectra, the polynomial fitting process results in false positive detections in the JCMT spectrum. Furthermore, a non-parametric bootstrap analysis reveals that neither line detection method is able to recover a statistically significant detection. There is thus no significant evidence for phosphine absorption in the JCMT Venus spectra.
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Significant at what level? It might still be worth confirming, even if doesn't qualify as a scientific discovery.
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Significant at what level? It might still be worth confirming, even if doesn't qualify as a scientific discovery.
It effectively means there is nothing worth investigating, IOW it's just noise in the data.
I was skeptical before, but now I am pretty sure this phosphine result is dead. Remember that the researchers originally thought it would give a negative result, like everyone else they weren't expecting to see any biosignatures on or around Venus.
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what is interesting is that no other team seems to be able to replicate the results. and that could be the nail in the coffin
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Significant at what level? It might still be worth confirming, even if doesn't qualify as a scientific discovery.
It effectively means there is nothing worth investigating, IOW it's just noise in the data.
I was skeptical before, but now I am pretty sure this phosphine result is dead. Remember that the researchers originally thought it would give a negative result, like everyone else they weren't expecting to see any biosignatures on or around Venus.
If I was looking for a post screaming over confidence in their own beliefs it would be this one.
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what is interesting is that no other team seems to be able to replicate the results. and that could be the nail in the coffin
But the results were taken from two different instruments it’s not like the announced the results off one instrument.
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what is interesting is that no other team seems to be able to replicate the results. and that could be the nail in the coffin
But the results were taken from two different instruments it’s not like the announced the results off one instrument.
The problem seems to be that in both cases a similar, unusual fitting method was used to remove instrumental effects. That appears to have caused spurious lines to appear in the spectra.
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what is interesting is that no other team seems to be able to replicate the results. and that could be the nail in the coffin
But the results were taken from two different instruments it’s not like the announced the results off one instrument.
The problem seems to be that in both cases a similar, unusual fitting method was used to remove instrumental effects. That appears to have caused spurious lines to appear in the spectra.
What happens if the ALMA results are confirmed I wonder?
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I have to wonder if the paper discussed up thread that needed an apology issued afterwards would have been written using such language in the first place if the lead scientist on the paper they were responding to had been a man rather than woman.
You keep blaming the messengers...
You blamed "the media" for sensationalizing the original article even though most coverage merely echoed what was in the article.
You said criticism should be hushed since in times of covid, science doesn't need more criticism.
You blamed critics for their tone, but haven't addressed their content.
Now you're speculating that the criticism is because the original lead author was female.
You are not helping the cause of science in any way shape of form.
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I have to wonder if the paper discussed up thread that needed an apology issued afterwards would have been written using such language in the first place if the lead scientist on the paper they were responding to had been a man rather than woman.
You keep blaming the messengers...
You blamed "the media" for sensationalizing the original article even though most coverage merely echoed what was in the article.
You said criticism should be hushed since in times of covid, science doesn't need more criticism.
You blamed critics for their tone, but haven't addressed their content.
Now you're speculating that the criticism is because the original lead author was female.
You are not helping the cause of science in any way shape of form.
You appear to be advancing an argument that the mainstream media are above criticism on their science reporting. I believe I’ve already asked you about this yet you’ve chosen to not respond in any meaningful way. Making comments like not shooting the messenger hardly seems to me to be any kind of response at all in this respect.
Also please show where I have stated that science should be above criticism or criticism should be hushed as you put it? Because I really cannot see where I am supposed to have said this or even indicated this. If it is because of my post that was effectively saying that science was the best way forward to resolve the pandemic, and was really just meant to be agreeing with another forum members post that I quoted. Then all I can say is you’ve either mistakingly or very deliberately misinterpreted what that post is saying.
As to the comment about tone rather than content then I was just agreeing with what others had already posted in that respect, being as others had already addressed the specific wording I hardly see what would been gained by me repeating these self same points yet again. Yet seemingly you have just chosen to single me out directly for criticism mostly just for for agreeing with what others had already said, for some reason I just cannot fathom.
Perhaps it would be helpful and certainly appreciated if you choose to not make this so seemingly personal for reasons that escape me.
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You appear to be advancing an argument that the mainstream media are above criticism on their science reporting. I believe I’ve already asked you about this yet you’ve chosen to not respond in any meaningful way. Making comments like not shooting the messenger hardly seems to me to be any kind of response at all in this respect.
Also please show where I have stated that science should be above criticism or criticism should be hushed as you put it?
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I am so glad you asked that. (I've been away, sorry for the delayed response)
Here are your words: (Bolded)
I don’t know maybe actually read the original paper that doesn’t really even talk particularly about life more about an interesting chemical result. There’s a little too much of the blame the scientists in this discussion. Considering we are living in a world of pandemic deniers I don’t think it helps to open up yet another front on scientists on this topic.
(And also, the media didn't invent the speculation about life. The authors did. In the body and title of their paper. And then they went to the media with it, they didn't just publish it.)
... Speculation about possible life in the Venusian atmosphere came from the study authors [1]. They didn't need to do that. And, I think they chose to hold a "media briefing" to broadcast the news to the world, so you can hardly blame the media for digging up an obscure paper and blowing it up.
[1] https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2020.2244 "The Venusian Lower Atmosphere Haze as a Depot for Desiccated Microbial Life: A Proposed Life Cycle for Persistence of the Venusian Aerial Biosphere"
And you’re cutting the media coverage too much slack, as the media are hardly blameless in this.
Overall, you've so far mostly attacked the teams doubting the discovery, "the media", and other posters.
Your latest claim was that the original paper is being doubted strongly because the lead researcher was a woman.
I have to wonder if the paper discussed up thread that needed an apology issued afterwards would have been written using such language in the first place if the lead scientist on the paper they were responding to had been a man rather than woman.
... and now you complain that the conversation is not about the original paper?!
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You appear to be advancing an argument that the mainstream media are above criticism on their science reporting. I believe I’ve already asked you about this yet you’ve chosen to not respond in any meaningful way. Making comments like not shooting the messenger hardly seems to me to be any kind of response at all in this respect.
Also please show where I have stated that science should be above criticism or criticism should be hushed as you put it?
...
I am so glad you asked that. (I've been away, sorry for the delayed response)
Here are your words: (Bolded)
I don’t know maybe actually read the original paper that doesn’t really even talk particularly about life more about an interesting chemical result. There’s a little too much of the blame the scientists in this discussion. Considering we are living in a world of pandemic deniers I don’t think it helps to open up yet another front on scientists on this topic.
(And also, the media didn't invent the speculation about life. The authors did. In the body and title of their paper. And then they went to the media with it, they didn't just publish it.)
... Speculation about possible life in the Venusian atmosphere came from the study authors [1]. They didn't need to do that. And, I think they chose to hold a "media briefing" to broadcast the news to the world, so you can hardly blame the media for digging up an obscure paper and blowing it up.
[1] https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2020.2244 "The Venusian Lower Atmosphere Haze as a Depot for Desiccated Microbial Life: A Proposed Life Cycle for Persistence of the Venusian Aerial Biosphere"
And you’re cutting the media coverage too much slack, as the media are hardly blameless in this.
Overall, you've so far mostly attacked the teams doubting the discovery, "the media", and other posters.
Your latest claim was that the original paper is being doubted strongly because the lead researcher was a woman.
I have to wonder if the paper discussed up thread that needed an apology issued afterwards would have been written using such language in the first place if the lead scientist on the paper they were responding to had been a man rather than woman.
... and now you complain that the conversation is not about the original paper?!
Answering something with a series of implied questions is not answering anything. Why are you so reluctant to actually state your opinion on any of these matters. You’re acting as if the team who published the original paper ran your cat over, without actually coming out and stating an opinion. If you don’t like what they did and how they did it, state it and stop beating around the bush as it’s tiring.
I am more than happy to admit that it doesn’t look good for the original paper at all.
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You appear to be advancing an argument that the mainstream media are above criticism on their science reporting. I believe I’ve already asked you about this yet you’ve chosen to not respond in any meaningful way. Making comments like not shooting the messenger hardly seems to me to be any kind of response at all in this respect.
Also please show where I have stated that science should be above criticism or criticism should be hushed as you put it?
...
I am so glad you asked that. (I've been away, sorry for the delayed response)
Here are your words: (Bolded)
I don’t know maybe actually read the original paper that doesn’t really even talk particularly about life more about an interesting chemical result. There’s a little too much of the blame the scientists in this discussion. Considering we are living in a world of pandemic deniers I don’t think it helps to open up yet another front on scientists on this topic.
(And also, the media didn't invent the speculation about life. The authors did. In the body and title of their paper. And then they went to the media with it, they didn't just publish it.)
... Speculation about possible life in the Venusian atmosphere came from the study authors [1]. They didn't need to do that. And, I think they chose to hold a "media briefing" to broadcast the news to the world, so you can hardly blame the media for digging up an obscure paper and blowing it up.
[1] https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2020.2244 "The Venusian Lower Atmosphere Haze as a Depot for Desiccated Microbial Life: A Proposed Life Cycle for Persistence of the Venusian Aerial Biosphere"
And you’re cutting the media coverage too much slack, as the media are hardly blameless in this.
Overall, you've so far mostly attacked the teams doubting the discovery, "the media", and other posters.
Your latest claim was that the original paper is being doubted strongly because the lead researcher was a woman.
I have to wonder if the paper discussed up thread that needed an apology issued afterwards would have been written using such language in the first place if the lead scientist on the paper they were responding to had been a man rather than woman.
... and now you complain that the conversation is not about the original paper?!
Answering something with a series of implied questions is not answering anything. Why are you so reluctant to actually state your opinion on any of these matters. You’re acting as if the team who published the original paper ran your cat over, without actually coming out and stating an opinion. If you don’t like what they did and how they did it, state it and stop beating around the bush as it’s tiring.
I am more than happy to admit that it doesn’t look good for the original paper at all.
My opinion is that the original paper may ay!) be wrong, and that the quite detailed speculation about life should have been separated from the actual detection.
I think the media did nothing wrong, that criticism should not be held back because of COVID, that if some of the critics are too loud that's by far secondary especially if they are the authors of a conflicting study, and that I haven't seen why evidence that any of this is gender based.
I've stated all of these points above already.
All of the points in the second paragraph whould not have been made even had you not made the exact opposite claims.
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You appear to be advancing an argument that the mainstream media are above criticism on their science reporting. I believe I’ve already asked you about this yet you’ve chosen to not respond in any meaningful way. Making comments like not shooting the messenger hardly seems to me to be any kind of response at all in this respect.
Also please show where I have stated that science should be above criticism or criticism should be hushed as you put it?
...
I am so glad you asked that. (I've been away, sorry for the delayed response)
Here are your words: (Bolded)
I don’t know maybe actually read the original paper that doesn’t really even talk particularly about life more about an interesting chemical result. There’s a little too much of the blame the scientists in this discussion. Considering we are living in a world of pandemic deniers I don’t think it helps to open up yet another front on scientists on this topic.
(And also, the media didn't invent the speculation about life. The authors did. In the body and title of their paper. And then they went to the media with it, they didn't just publish it.)
... Speculation about possible life in the Venusian atmosphere came from the study authors [1]. They didn't need to do that. And, I think they chose to hold a "media briefing" to broadcast the news to the world, so you can hardly blame the media for digging up an obscure paper and blowing it up.
[1] https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2020.2244 "The Venusian Lower Atmosphere Haze as a Depot for Desiccated Microbial Life: A Proposed Life Cycle for Persistence of the Venusian Aerial Biosphere"
And you’re cutting the media coverage too much slack, as the media are hardly blameless in this.
Overall, you've so far mostly attacked the teams doubting the discovery, "the media", and other posters.
Your latest claim was that the original paper is being doubted strongly because the lead researcher was a woman.
I have to wonder if the paper discussed up thread that needed an apology issued afterwards would have been written using such language in the first place if the lead scientist on the paper they were responding to had been a man rather than woman.
... and now you complain that the conversation is not about the original paper?!
Answering something with a series of implied questions is not answering anything. Why are you so reluctant to actually state your opinion on any of these matters. You’re acting as if the team who published the original paper ran your cat over, without actually coming out and stating an opinion. If you don’t like what they did and how they did it, state it and stop beating around the bush as it’s tiring.
I am more than happy to admit that it doesn’t look good for the original paper at all.
My opinion is that the original paper may ay!) be wrong, and that the quite detailed speculation about life should have been separated from the actual detection.
I think the media did nothing wrong, that criticism should not be held back because of COVID, that if some of the critics are too loud that's by far secondary especially if they are the authors of a conflicting study, and that I haven't seen why evidence that any of this is gender based.
I've stated all of these points above already.
All of the points in the second paragraph whould not have been made even had you not made the exact opposite claims.
It was my understanding that very little was said about it possibly being life in the actual original paper itself. And I cannot agree as I’ve said repeatedly with your idea that the media are blameless in this, because to me it just doesn’t appear to be the case that they are blameless, even if some of the presentation of the paper by the discovery team leaned into this idea, the media took that very much further.
I also don’t believe you’ve made any kind of case that realistically defends the language in one of the papers disputing the results, especially when that team involved has already issued an apology for it. And my points related to this was specifically made in relation to this paper alone and no other paper, which I thought was already clear. As to my speculation, which again was purely in relation to the paper mentioned above, that would they have used such language in the first place if the primary investigator hadn’t been a woman, that’s all it was speculation nothing more or less.
As to my COVID mention, again as I thought I had already made clear above that was made agreeing with another poster that the scientific method and peer review was the best way of making progress in matters like finding a response to the pandemic. The reason I am confused by your response to this, is because that is why I made the comment, there was no intention to say the scientific method was above criticism so I don’t know why you would read it like that.
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It was my understanding that very little was said about it possibly being life in the actual original paper itself.
You tell people to read the paper, but I don't think you read the paper.
And I cannot agree as I’ve said repeatedly with your idea that the media are blameless in this, because to me it just doesn’t appear to be the case that they are blameless, even if some of the presentation of the paper by the discovery team leaned into this idea, the media took that very much further.
I know you keep repeating it, but show me where the media invented something the authors didn't write or emphasize.
Otherwise you're just blaming "the media" without evidence.
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What I'm telling you is - focus on the paper, and any shortcomings it may have. That's the topic.
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It was my understanding that very little was said about it possibly being life in the actual original paper itself.
You tell people to read the paper, but I don't think you read the paper.
And I cannot agree as I’ve said repeatedly with your idea that the media are blameless in this, because to me it just doesn’t appear to be the case that they are blameless, even if some of the presentation of the paper by the discovery team leaned into this idea, the media took that very much further.
I know you keep repeating it, but show me where the media invented something the authors didn't write or emphasize.
Otherwise you're just blaming "the media" without evidence.
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What I'm telling you is - focus on the paper, and any shortcomings it may have. That's the topic.
Well you seem to have wasted a heck of a lot of words just to get to that final point. I’ve actually read the paper but I need to read it again by the sounds of it.
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Well, let's look at the paper (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-020-1174-4):
If no known chemical process can explain PH3 within the upper atmosphere of Venus, then it must be produced by a process not previously considered plausible for Venusian conditions. This could be unknown photochemistry or geochemistry, or possibly life. Information is lacking—as an example, the photochemistry of Venusian cloud droplets is almost completely unknown. Hence a possible droplet-phase photochemical source for PH3 must be considered (even though PH3 is oxidized by sulfuric acid). Questions of why hypothetical organisms on Venus might make PH3 are also highly speculative (see ‘PH3 and hypotheses on Venusian life’ in Methods and Supplementary Information).
Even if confirmed, we emphasize that the detection of PH3 is not robust evidence for life, only for anomalous and unexplained chemistry. There are substantial conceptual problems for the idea of life in Venus’s clouds—the environment is extremely dehydrating as well as hyperacidic. However, we have ruled out many chemical routes to PH3, with the most likely ones falling short by four to eight orders of magnitude (Extended Data Fig. 10). To further discriminate between unknown photochemical and/or geological processes as the source of Venusian PH3, or to determine whether there is life in the clouds of Venus, substantial modelling and experimentation will be important. Ultimately, a solution could come from revisiting Venus for in situ measurements or aerosol return.
tl;dr: We found PH3 where we did not expect to. Current chemical processes cannot explain the amount we measured, so there must be unknown processes that generate it. Those unknown processes could include life.
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It was my understanding that very little was said about it possibly being life in the actual original paper itself.
You tell people to read the paper, but I don't think you read the paper.
And I cannot agree as I’ve said repeatedly with your idea that the media are blameless in this, because to me it just doesn’t appear to be the case that they are blameless, even if some of the presentation of the paper by the discovery team leaned into this idea, the media took that very much further.
I know you keep repeating it, but show me where the media invented something the authors didn't write or emphasize.
Otherwise you're just blaming "the media" without evidence.
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What I'm telling you is - focus on the paper, and any shortcomings it may have. That's the topic.
Well you seem to have wasted a heck of a lot of words just to get to that final point. I’ve actually read the paper but I need to read it again by the sounds of it.
Actually those "wasted words" were the main thing. It was annoying that you were busy blaming everyone and everything instead of talking about the paper.
As for the paper itself, it discusses the possibility of life, in the body and in the title. I haven't seen headlines that said "life found on Venus".
We have one paper saying they have detected a single absorption line of PH3. Others have failed to do so. There's questions about the math used.
So basically that's that. Let's keep the focus on the paper and on follow-ups.
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This article covers all these follow up papers on the possible phosphine detection in the Venusian atmosphere.
There are all kinds of reasons for data discrepancies on phosphine depending on its possible distribution in Venus’ atmosphere, so until we get further information, we’re left to speculate. But let’s welcome Venus back into the spotlight. I’m glad to see the re-emergence of public interest, and the fortunes of Venus in terms of future mission desirability are obviously on the rise, something the Venus science community must welcome as parched desert-crossers welcome an unexpected flowing spring.
https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2020/10/22/back-into-the-clouds-of-venus/
Another good article on this.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/10/31/1011487/not-finding-life-on-venus-disappointing-good-science-phosphine-biosignature/
For now, the phosphine paper is the only set of results that has undergone peer review. Thompson encourages discussion to now wait until the arXiv papers have been similarly vetted and Greaves’ team have conducted their own re-analysis. If, after all that, the results are still in dispute, then it may be that new observations at different frequencies are required. Phosphine is difficult to detect from the ground but NASA’s airborne Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy telescope, which flies at an altitude of over 13.7 km on board a modified Boeing 747SP, could confirm or deny the finding.
https://physicsworld.com/a/controversy-erupts-among-astronomers-over-whether-phosphine-really-was-discovered-on-venus/
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Some strong words and subsequent in-fighting at the IAU over how these results were presented.
https://physicsworld.com/a/controversy-erupts-among-astronomers-over-whether-phosphine-really-was-discovered-on-venus/
Shortly after the announcement, however, the organizing committee of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Commission F3 on Astrobiology released a statement lambasting Greaves’ team for the resulting press coverage of the claimed discovery.
“It is an ethical duty for any scientist to communicate with the media and the public with great scientific rigour and to be careful not to overstate any interpretation which will be irretrievably picked up by the press,” they wrote, adding that the commission “would like to remind the relevant researchers that we need to understand how the press and the media behave before communicating with them”.
The IAU statement was met with scorn from many quarters, including the commission’s own members, many of whom said the organizing committee did not speak for them. The statement was then swiftly retracted by the IAU executive, who insisted that it did not reflect the view of the organization. In its own statement, the executive added that the organizing committee of Commission F3 had “been contacted to retract their statement and to contact the scientific team with an apology”. The IAU said it will now produce a procedure for future public communication that all members will be advised to follow.
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When I read that in the article I was pretty shocked as I had them down as a pretty sedate organisation that wouldn’t start having to retract statements.
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Some strong words and subsequent in-fighting at the IAU over how these results were presented.
https://physicsworld.com/a/controversy-erupts-among-astronomers-over-whether-phosphine-really-was-discovered-on-venus/
Shortly after the announcement, however, the organizing committee of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Commission F3 on Astrobiology released a statement lambasting Greaves’ team for the resulting press coverage of the claimed discovery.
“It is an ethical duty for any scientist to communicate with the media and the public with great scientific rigour and to be careful not to overstate any interpretation which will be irretrievably picked up by the press,” they wrote, adding that the commission “would like to remind the relevant researchers that we need to understand how the press and the media behave before communicating with them”.
The IAU statement was met with scorn from many quarters, including the commission’s own members, many of whom said the organizing committee did not speak for them. The statement was then swiftly retracted by the IAU executive, who insisted that it did not reflect the view of the organization. In its own statement, the executive added that the organizing committee of Commission F3 had “been contacted to retract their statement and to contact the scientific team with an apology”. The IAU said it will now produce a procedure for future public communication that all members will be advised to follow.
The statement is bang on. Blaming the media for your own failing is the lazy (but clearly popular) way out.
I was very interested in the result, and by and large the popular media hasn't reported or evenemphasized anything that wasn't in the paper. They all said "phosphine was detected, no simple chemical explanation, could be airborne life, need more info".
What was so controversial about the coverage?
The original paper OTOH should not have gone into those baseless speculations. That's the problem.
Those should have been written up in completely separate paper, maybe with some non-obvious predictions that can be corroborated or falsified, because otherwise it's just science fiction.
Also, didn't the authors also throw a "press event" about their paper?
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Some strong words and subsequent in-fighting at the IAU over how these results were presented.
https://physicsworld.com/a/controversy-erupts-among-astronomers-over-whether-phosphine-really-was-discovered-on-venus/
Shortly after the announcement, however, the organizing committee of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Commission F3 on Astrobiology released a statement lambasting Greaves’ team for the resulting press coverage of the claimed discovery.
“It is an ethical duty for any scientist to communicate with the media and the public with great scientific rigour and to be careful not to overstate any interpretation which will be irretrievably picked up by the press,” they wrote, adding that the commission “would like to remind the relevant researchers that we need to understand how the press and the media behave before communicating with them”.
The IAU statement was met with scorn from many quarters, including the commission’s own members, many of whom said the organizing committee did not speak for them. The statement was then swiftly retracted by the IAU executive, who insisted that it did not reflect the view of the organization. In its own statement, the executive added that the organizing committee of Commission F3 had “been contacted to retract their statement and to contact the scientific team with an apology”. The IAU said it will now produce a procedure for future public communication that all members will be advised to follow.
The statement is bang on. Blaming the media for your own failing is the lazy (but clearly popular) way out.
I was very interested in the result, and by and large the popular media hasn't reported or evenemphasized anything that wasn't in the paper. They all said "phosphine was detected, no simple chemical explanation, could be airborne life, need more info".
What was so controversial about the coverage?
The original paper OTOH should not have gone into those baseless speculations. That's the problem.
Those should have been written up in completely separate paper, maybe with some non-obvious predictions that can be corroborated or falsified, because otherwise it's just science fiction.
Also, didn't the authors also throw a "press event" about their paper?
It also states later on, my bolding:
However, he thinks that the IAU statement has a point, agreeing that the fallout “comes in large part from the over-hyping of the result by some parts of the press”.
Which completely contradicts what you’re saying. Maybe you might want to read articles fully before agreeing with them.
Also in this other article I posted a link to above from MIT, and talking about the original paper it states:
“The authors were super clear. They did a fantastic job of saying that they did not find life—that they found something associated with life on Earth that they cannot explain on Venus,” says Stephanie Olson, a planetary scientist at Purdue University who was not involved with any of these studies. The team went so far as to publish a paper in the journal Astrobiology investigating—and ruling out—known natural causes for phosphine in Venus.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/10/31/1011487/not-finding-life-on-venus-disappointing-good-science-phosphine-biosignature/
None of what I’ve quoted above fits with the narrative you’ve been trying to peddle on here, in fact as I said above it actually contradicts it.
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Some strong words and subsequent in-fighting at the IAU over how these results were presented.
https://physicsworld.com/a/controversy-erupts-among-astronomers-over-whether-phosphine-really-was-discovered-on-venus/
Shortly after the announcement, however, the organizing committee of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Commission F3 on Astrobiology released a statement lambasting Greaves’ team for the resulting press coverage of the claimed discovery.
“It is an ethical duty for any scientist to communicate with the media and the public with great scientific rigour and to be careful not to overstate any interpretation which will be irretrievably picked up by the press,” they wrote, adding that the commission “would like to remind the relevant researchers that we need to understand how the press and the media behave before communicating with them”.
The IAU statement was met with scorn from many quarters, including the commission’s own members, many of whom said the organizing committee did not speak for them. The statement was then swiftly retracted by the IAU executive, who insisted that it did not reflect the view of the organization. In its own statement, the executive added that the organizing committee of Commission F3 had “been contacted to retract their statement and to contact the scientific team with an apology”. The IAU said it will now produce a procedure for future public communication that all members will be advised to follow.
The statement is bang on. Blaming the media for your own failing is the lazy (but clearly popular) way out.
I was very interested in the result, and by and large the popular media hasn't reported or evenemphasized anything that wasn't in the paper. They all said "phosphine was detected, no simple chemical explanation, could be airborne life, need more info".
What was so controversial about the coverage?
The original paper OTOH should not have gone into those baseless speculations. That's the problem.
Those should have been written up in completely separate paper, maybe with some non-obvious predictions that can be corroborated or falsified, because otherwise it's just science fiction.
Also, didn't the authors also throw a "press event" about their paper?
It also states later on, my bolding:
However, he thinks that the IAU statement has a point, agreeing that the fallout “comes in large part from the over-hyping of the result by some parts of the press”.
Which completely contradicts what you’re saying. Maybe you might want to read articles fully before agreeing with them.
Also in this other article I also posted a link to and talking about the original paper it states:
“The authors were super clear. They did a fantastic job of saying that they did not find life—that they found something associated with life on Earth that they cannot explain on Venus,” says Stephanie Olson, a planetary scientist at Purdue University who was not involved with any of these studies. The team went so far as to publish a paper in the journal Astrobiology investigating—and ruling out—known natural causes for phosphine in Venus.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/10/31/1011487/not-finding-life-on-venus-disappointing-good-science-phosphine-biosignature/
None of what I’ve quoted above fits with the narrative you’ve been trying to peddle on here, in fact as I said above it actually contradicts it.
All these pages later, you still need to show how the press over-hyped anything.
These scientists held a press event and described a finding that they can't explain and speculated about life being the cause of it.
And then were surprised that the press repeated what they said.
This is how science loses credibility.
-
Some strong words and subsequent in-fighting at the IAU over how these results were presented.
https://physicsworld.com/a/controversy-erupts-among-astronomers-over-whether-phosphine-really-was-discovered-on-venus/
Shortly after the announcement, however, the organizing committee of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Commission F3 on Astrobiology released a statement lambasting Greaves’ team for the resulting press coverage of the claimed discovery.
“It is an ethical duty for any scientist to communicate with the media and the public with great scientific rigour and to be careful not to overstate any interpretation which will be irretrievably picked up by the press,” they wrote, adding that the commission “would like to remind the relevant researchers that we need to understand how the press and the media behave before communicating with them”.
The IAU statement was met with scorn from many quarters, including the commission’s own members, many of whom said the organizing committee did not speak for them. The statement was then swiftly retracted by the IAU executive, who insisted that it did not reflect the view of the organization. In its own statement, the executive added that the organizing committee of Commission F3 had “been contacted to retract their statement and to contact the scientific team with an apology”. The IAU said it will now produce a procedure for future public communication that all members will be advised to follow.
The statement is bang on. Blaming the media for your own failing is the lazy (but clearly popular) way out.
I was very interested in the result, and by and large the popular media hasn't reported or evenemphasized anything that wasn't in the paper. They all said "phosphine was detected, no simple chemical explanation, could be airborne life, need more info".
What was so controversial about the coverage?
The original paper OTOH should not have gone into those baseless speculations. That's the problem.
Those should have been written up in completely separate paper, maybe with some non-obvious predictions that can be corroborated or falsified, because otherwise it's just science fiction.
Also, didn't the authors also throw a "press event" about their paper?
It also states later on, my bolding:
However, he thinks that the IAU statement has a point, agreeing that the fallout “comes in large part from the over-hyping of the result by some parts of the press”.
Which completely contradicts what you’re saying. Maybe you might want to read articles fully before agreeing with them.
Also in this other article I also posted a link to and talking about the original paper it states:
“The authors were super clear. They did a fantastic job of saying that they did not find life—that they found something associated with life on Earth that they cannot explain on Venus,” says Stephanie Olson, a planetary scientist at Purdue University who was not involved with any of these studies. The team went so far as to publish a paper in the journal Astrobiology investigating—and ruling out—known natural causes for phosphine in Venus.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/10/31/1011487/not-finding-life-on-venus-disappointing-good-science-phosphine-biosignature/
None of what I’ve quoted above fits with the narrative you’ve been trying to peddle on here, in fact as I said above it actually contradicts it.
All these pages later, you still need to show how the press over-hyped anything.
These scientists held a press event and described a finding that they can't explain and speculated about life being the cause of it.
And then were surprised that the press repeated what they said.
This is how science loses credibility.
No all it shows and nothing else is if anyone posts anything on here that contradicts the narrative you’ve consistently tried to peddle you ignore it.
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All these pages later, you still need to show how the press over-hyped anything.
These scientists held a press event and described a finding that they can't explain and speculated about life being the cause of it.
And then were surprised that the press repeated what they said.
This is how science loses credibility.
No all it shows and nothing else is if anyone posts anything on here that contradicts the narrative you’ve consistently tried to peddle you ignore it.
I try to bring the discussion back to the paper and its authors.
You're the one bringing in the supposed faults of the media, gender discrimination, etc - and still without once showing evidence.
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Guys... it's now been more than 2 forum pages practically full of your back-and-forth, poorly edited, wall-of-text metadiscussion on semantics and media, barely focusing any of the (anyway pretty philosophical with little substance) actual points you're supposedly arguing about.
I'd suggest giving it up, or at least carry on away from the public thread, where the majority of readers are trying to ascertain which merits there are to the opposing phosphine detection claims.
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Guys... it's now been more than 2 forum pages practically full of your back-and-forth, poorly edited, wall-of-text metadiscussion on semantics and media, barely focusing any of the (anyway pretty philosophical with little substance) actual points you're supposedly arguing about.
I'd suggest giving it up, or at least carry on away from the public thread, where the majority of readers are trying to ascertain which merits there are to the opposing phosphine detection claims.
:) fair enough
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Guys... it's now been more than 2 forum pages practically full of your back-and-forth, poorly edited, wall-of-text metadiscussion on semantics and media, barely focusing any of the (anyway pretty philosophical with little substance) actual points you're supposedly arguing about.
I'd suggest giving it up, or at least carry on away from the public thread, where the majority of readers are trying to ascertain which merits there are to the opposing phosphine detection claims.
Message received loud and clear.
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Something to get back on the phosphine track.
The Phosphine Debate: The Case for Incessant Study
http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2020/11/the-phosphine-debate-case-for-incessant.html
Based on the repeated mentioning of over-fitting with a 12th order polynomial, I wondered at what order N the phosphine signal would disappear? At N=11,10,9, ....,1 ? The above paper does not answer that completely but at least says the following:
The new paper argued that the previous work over fitted their equation to reduce noise using a long twelfth-degree polynomial. Changing the polynomial reduces the strength of the signal of phosphine significantly but does not completely negate it.
That sounds reasonable. In an extremely bad generalization case and model, you would (over)tweak your model and the signal would disappear at order N-1 but that is not the case here it seems. Further data collection and analysis is necessary to settle the debate.
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Something to get back on the phosphine track.
The Phosphine Debate: The Case for Incessant Study
http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2020/11/the-phosphine-debate-case-for-incessant.html (http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2020/11/the-phosphine-debate-case-for-incessant.html)
Based on the repeated mentioning of over-fitting with a 12th order polynomial, I wondered at what order N the phosphine signal would disappear? At N=11,10,9, ....,1 ? The above paper does not answer that completely but at least says the following:
The new paper argued that the previous work over fitted their equation to reduce noise using a long twelfth-degree polynomial. Changing the polynomial reduces the strength of the signal of phosphine significantly but does not completely negate it.
That sounds reasonable. In an extremely bad generalization case and model, you would (over)tweak your model and the signal would disappear at order N-1 but that is not the case here it seems. Further data collection and analysis is necessary to settle the debate.
The issue is that a polynomial will fit more or less what you want it to fit in a reasonably-sized window as long as you keep increasing the order... but it will also misfit things outside of said window, which is precisely what this polynomial fit did (created fake excesses in parts of the spectrum where there weren't any, nor were they interpreted as such, but without a proper explanation). The choice also appears not to be properly justified from a statistical point of view, although the details currently escape me.[/size]
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“With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.”
Of course, if one has specific observed factors attributed to and modeled by specific variables, I don’t think the Von Neumann quote applies. Still calls it to mind.
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Something to get back on the phosphine track.
The Phosphine Debate: The Case for Incessant Study
http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2020/11/the-phosphine-debate-case-for-incessant.html
Based on the repeated mentioning of over-fitting with a 12th order polynomial, I wondered at what order N the phosphine signal would disappear? At N=11,10,9, ....,1 ? The above paper does not answer that completely but at least says the following:
This tweet shows a visualisation of what the signal looks like after subtracting polynomials of lower orders:
https://twitter.com/michaelgreshko/status/1319504219053969409?s=20
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I suppose it boils down to the old adage that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
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As a research scientist (retired) I never really liked that statement. What constitutes an extraordinary claim? Carl Sagan frequently used it when discussing any potential discovery of life on other planets. If (hypothetically) life is eventually discovered on Venus, Mars, Europa, and the moons of Saturn, it would mean that life is common and the claim was never extraordinary at all. It was just an arbitrary label that could be applied to any unknown. I once had a opportunity to discuss this with Carl at a seminar but there were too many others vying for his attention and I missed my chance.
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As a research scientist (retired) I never really liked that statement. What constitutes an extraordinary claim? Carl Sagan frequently used it when discussing any potential discovery of life on other planets. If (hypothetically) life is eventually discovered on Venus, Mars, Europa, and the moons of Saturn, if would mean that life is common and the claim was never extraordinary at all. It was just an arbitrary label that could be applied to any unknown. I once had a opportunity to discuss this with Carl at a seminar but there were too many others vying for his attention and I missed my chance.
Being a member of a forum is often worth it alone for hearing anecdotes like this, I hope you don’t mind me saying so. Apologies for drifting off topic.
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I suppose it boils down to the old adage that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
The problem is that the telescopes they had access to are only capable of providing ordinary evidence. Gathering that extraordinary evidence means gaining access to instruments able to provide it. Whether that's low-cost direct sampling missions (as Rocketlab intend), piggybacking an instrument on an a 'headline' Venus mission, or access to a Earth or near-Earth telescope capable of making observations with the necessary fidelity.
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This is still kicking, although I would argue the admittedly imprecise calibration sows more doubts than it clears. Still intriguing though.
https://mobile.twitter.com/ProfSaraSeager/status/1328654716906188800
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This is still kicking, although I would argue the admittedly imprecise calibration sows more doubts than it clears. Still intriguing though.
https://mobile.twitter.com/ProfSaraSeager/status/1328654716906188800
I suppose only in situ measurements are really going to resolve this one way or another.
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This is still kicking, although I would argue the admittedly imprecise calibration sows more doubts than it clears. Still intriguing though.
My understanding is that experts are fairly sceptical about the claimed Pioneer Venus phosphine detection.
About the response to the criticism: I'm still confused about their baseline subtraction procedure. They say "Further, the correct polynomial order is defined by the number of changes of direction of the spectral baseline within the passband.", but how is one supposed to be able to tell a priori which wiggles in the observed spectrum are "changes of direction of the spectral baseline". The response is directed towards Villanueva et al., but they don't seem to address (directly, at least) the comments of Thompson and Snellen et al.
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I think we need more independent studies also detecting, or not, phosphine on Venus to reach a conclusion.
https://twitter.com/ProfAbelMendez/status/1328791240754782216
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Cool Worlds talks with Professor Jane Greaves:
https://youtu.be/2GMW7GZAUfQ
She certainly gives a robust defence of her original paper and is rather scathing about the other papers and how those teams acted.
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Since that initial claim, other science teams have cast doubt on the reliability of the phosphine detection. Now, a team led by researchers at the University of Washington has used a robust model of the conditions within the atmosphere of Venus to revisit and comprehensively reinterpret the radio telescope observations underlying the initial phosphine claim. As they report in a paper accepted to the Astrophysical Journal and posted Jan. 25 to the preprint site arXiv, the U.K.-led group likely wasn’t detecting phosphine at all.
“Instead of phosphine in the clouds of Venus, the data are consistent with an alternative hypothesis: They were detecting sulfur dioxide,” said co-author Victoria Meadows, a UW professor of astronomy. “Sulfur dioxide is the third-most-common chemical compound in Venus’ atmosphere, and it is not considered a sign of life.”
The team behind the new study also includes scientists at NASA’s Caltech-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the NASA Ames Research Center and the University of California, Riverside.
https://www.washington.edu/news/2021/01/27/phosphine-venus-so2/
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Related papers to the above:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2101.09831
https://arxiv.org/abs/2101.09837
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I'm not saying it wasn't aliens, but... It wasn't aliens.
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Don't forget this research group's conclusion is also subject to peer review.
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Don't forget this research group's conclusion is also subject to peer review.
Indeed, people seem to forget you can post anything you want on arXiv. They may very well be right, I have nowhere near the knowledge to judge. But let's see this go through the proper channels first.
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Don't forget this research group's conclusion is also subject to peer review.
2101.09837 at least is accepted to ApJL, so it has gone through peer review.
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Don't forget this research group's conclusion is also subject to peer review.
2101.09837 at least is accepted to ApJL, so it has gone through peer review.
Apologies I thought both papers had been accepted and passed peer review, I didn’t realise it was only one.
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Don't forget this research group's conclusion is also subject to peer review.
2101.09837 at least is accepted to ApJL, so it has gone through peer review.
It's gone through enough peer review to be published in ApJL.
Peer review doesn't end there.
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Paper is fully peer reviewed. This data is kind of its own thing as it’s the only in situ data in this whole debate.
Venus’ Mass Spectra Show Signs of Disequilibria in the Middle Clouds
Abstract
We present a reexamination of mass spectral data obtained from the Pioneer Venus Large Probe Neutral Mass Spectrometer. Our interpretations of differing trace chemical species are suggestive of redox disequilibria in Venus’ middle clouds. Assignments to the data (at 51.3 km) include phosphine, hydrogen sulfide, nitrous acid, nitric acid, carbon monoxide, hydrochloric acid, hydrogen cyanide, ethane, and potentially ammonia, chlorous acid, and several tentative PxOyspecies. All parent ions were predicated upon assignment of corresponding fragmentation products, isotopologues, and atomic species. The data reveal parent ions at varying oxidation states, implying the presence of reducing power in the clouds, and illuminating the potential for chemistries yet to be discovered. When considering the hypothetical habitability of Venus’ clouds, the assignments reveal a potential signature of anaerobic phosphorus metabolism (phosphine), an electron donor for anoxygenic photosynthesis (nitrite), and major constituents of the nitrogen cycle (nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, and N2).
Plain Language Summary
We reexamined archived data obtained by the Pioneer Venus Large Probe Neutral Mass Spectrometer. Our results reveal the presence of several minor chemical species in Venus’ clouds including phosphine, hydrogen sulfide, nitrous acid (nitrite), nitric acid (nitrate), hydrogen cyanide, and possibly ammonia. The presence of these chemicals suggest that Venus’ clouds are not at equilibrium; thereby, illuminating the potential for chemistries yet to be discovered. Further, when considering the potential habitability of Venus’ clouds, our work reveals a potential signature of anaerobic phosphorus metabolism (phosphine), along with key chemical contributors towards anoxygenic photosynthesis (nitrite) and the terrestrial nitrogen cycle (nitrate, nitrite, possibly ammonia, and N2).
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2020GL091327
https://www.planetary.org/articles/pioneer-venus-multiprobe-phosphine-detection
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Here’s the related press release.
https://polycentric.cpp.edu/2021/03/signs-of-habitability-in-venus-clouds-found-using-1978-probe-data/
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Don't forget this research group's conclusion is also subject to peer review.
Or that 'peer review' just means that a paper is methodologically sound. It has nothing to do with whether the conclusions are correct or not.
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Don't forget this research group's conclusion is also subject to peer review.
Or that 'peer review' just means that a paper is methodologically sound. It has nothing to do with whether the conclusions are correct or not.
I am guessing you are applying that to the paper I just posted above.
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Don't forget this research group's conclusion is also subject to peer review.
Or that 'peer review' just means that a paper is methodologically sound. It has nothing to do with whether the conclusions are correct or not.
Yeah, good point. Peer review was the wrong word to use here.
But what I'm saying is we need to give the original authors of the first paper release in September the opportunity to respond to the valid points of concern raised, instead of washing their arguments away with the usual, "See! It's never aliens!" once an article comes out that refutes some of the findings.
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Don't forget this research group's conclusion is also subject to peer review.
Or that 'peer review' just means that a paper is methodologically sound. It has nothing to do with whether the conclusions are correct or not.
I regularly do peer reviews. The goal is both to weed out obviously poor science and to give authors suggestions on how to improve their papers. Poor science usually means faulty assumptions, methodology, or unsubstantiated conclusions. If the methodology is sound and the conclusions are well supported, I (and other scientists I work with) favor getting the results out. Science is a voting system where many ideas compete both for attention and possible inclusion in the consensus view. The goal is to get well substantiated ideas into the voting system.
That said, peer review has many flaws and just because a manuscript fails peer review doesn't mean its not good or that a paper that passes peer review is not bad. A lot rides on the luck of which scientists the journal reached out to and which 2-3 volunteered their time. One colleagues recently had a paper go to two journals before acceptance and at each one reviewer thought it was poor science and one said it was great science. One of the reviews was frankly an embarrassment.
We will see how the science community comes to vote on the results of this paper. I suspect that we'd need the results of the DAVINCI+ probe to really settle this, but even then the measurements may not be conclusive. Scientists (at least outside of press releases :) ) are found of saying that "the results suggest" rather than "the results prove"...
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Don't forget this research group's conclusion is also subject to peer review.
Or that 'peer review' just means that a paper is methodologically sound. It has nothing to do with whether the conclusions are correct or not.
I regularly do peer reviews. The goal is both to weed out obviously poor science and to give authors suggestions on how to improve their papers. Poor science usually means faulty assumptions, methodology, or unsubstantiated conclusions. If the methodology is sound and the conclusions are well supported, I (and other scientists I work with) favor getting the results out. Science is a voting system where many ideas compete both for attention and possible inclusion in the consensus view. The goal is to get well substantiated ideas into the voting system.
That said, peer review has many flaws and just because a manuscript fails peer review doesn't mean its not good or that a paper that passes peer review is not bad. A lot rides on the luck of which scientists the journal reached out to and which 2-3 volunteered their time. One colleagues recently had a paper go to two journals before acceptance and at each one reviewer thought it was poor science and one said it was great science. One of the reviews was frankly an embarrassment.
We will see how the science community comes to vote on the results of this paper. I suspect that we'd need the results of the DAVINCI+ probe to really settle this, but even then the measurements may not be conclusive. Scientists (at least outside of press releases :) ) are found of saying that "the results suggest" rather than "the results prove"...
Well this latest paper certainly seems to offer some support to the original paper.
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I wonder if this might land in a "what is life" area.
If there really is disequilibrium chemistry in Venus' clouds, but it's not bound into anything like cell membranes, and is using sulfuric acid as a solvent rather than water - well, how would we decide if that's life or not?
On Earth, the things that are arguably-living-or-not (eg viruses) are "parasites" of unambiguously-living systems. We've never seen a whole system in that ambiguous gray zone, though there is plenty of speculation about what the origin of life on Earth might have looked like.
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Don't forget this research group's conclusion is also subject to peer review.
Or that 'peer review' just means that a paper is methodologically sound. It has nothing to do with whether the conclusions are correct or not.
I regularly do peer reviews. The goal is both to weed out obviously poor science and to give authors suggestions on how to improve their papers. Poor science usually means faulty assumptions, methodology, or unsubstantiated conclusions. If the methodology is sound and the conclusions are well supported, I (and other scientists I work with) favor getting the results out. Science is a voting system where many ideas compete both for attention and possible inclusion in the consensus view. The goal is to get well substantiated ideas into the voting system.
That said, peer review has many flaws and just because a manuscript fails peer review doesn't mean its not good or that a paper that passes peer review is not bad. A lot rides on the luck of which scientists the journal reached out to and which 2-3 volunteered their time. One colleagues recently had a paper go to two journals before acceptance and at each one reviewer thought it was poor science and one said it was great science. One of the reviews was frankly an embarrassment.
We will see how the science community comes to vote on the results of this paper. I suspect that we'd need the results of the DAVINCI+ probe to really settle this, but even then the measurements may not be conclusive. Scientists (at least outside of press releases :) ) are found of saying that "the results suggest" rather than "the results prove"...
There's also a bigger issue that surrounds all this, which is the ultimate acceptance of the results. A paper can be great, it can go through peer review, it can get a lot of attention. But it may still take years, sometimes even decades before it is widely accepted as true. Somebody I know told me about how she published a paper about a process on Europa that took almost two decades to be widely accepted. Part of this was repeatability--other people had to repeat her results--but she said that she thought a big part of it was that a lot of scientists had spent a long time believing the previous theory and were unwilling to abandon it.
Science is a lot of things. A process, a method, a body of knowledge. But it's also people. And they hold to opinions and don't easily change them.
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Relevant background reading...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions
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But how much does any of this strengthen the hand for want of a better word the two proposed missions to Venus?
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There's also a bigger issue that surrounds all this, which is the ultimate acceptance of the results. A paper can be great, it can go through peer review, it can get a lot of attention. But it may still take years, sometimes even decades before it is widely accepted as true. Somebody I know told me about how she published a paper about a process on Europa that took almost two decades to be widely accepted. Part of this was repeatability--other people had to repeat her results--but she said that she thought a big part of it was that a lot of scientists had spent a long time believing the previous theory and were unwilling to abandon it.
Science is a lot of things. A process, a method, a body of knowledge. But it's also people. And they hold to opinions and don't easily change them.
Science is conservative when it comes to changing the consensus view. Many reasons. Large body of evidence supports the previous position. Careers are built on the existing consensus. Most new ideas turn out to be wrong or there's not the data to prove their right. Lot's of people need to come to decide their should change their view.
It can be a slow process, but there are processes and mechanisms to allow new ideas to be presented, build up support, and be "voted" on.
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Well, not exactly related, but the Granger and Engle paper that invented the cointegration method for time series analysis, took almost 10 years to go through peer review. Statisticians didn't liked to have to redo all their time series analysis.
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Venus Life Finder mission concept:
https://www.leonarddavid.com/taking-life-on-venus-seriously/?fbclid=IwAR14hpCNdkqGM9z_ETozqfh4-5_lTS5Xo7RpeJNACAapmzluzLQw3V5MbXY
https://venuscloudlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/VLFReport_12092021.pdf
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Cross-post:
The Rocket Lab Venus Mission will be the first Venus Life Finder (VLF) Mission:
“Newer, nimbler, faster:” Venus probe will search for signs of life in clouds of sulfuric acid (https://news.mit.edu/2021/newer-nimbler-faster-mission-venus-search-signs-life-clouds-sulfuric-acid-1210) [dated Dec. 10] (bolds mine)
In a new report published today, a team led by MIT researchers lays out the scientific plan and rationale for a suite of scrappy, privately-funded missions set to hunt for signs of life among the ultra-acidic atmosphere of the second planet from the sun.
“We hope this is the start of a new paradigm where you go cheaply, more often, and in a more focused way,” says Sara Seager, Class of 1941 Professor of Planetary Sciences in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) and principal investigator for the planned Venus Life Finder Missions. “This is a newer, nimbler, faster way to do space science. It’s very MIT.”
The first of the missions is set to launch in 2023, managed and funded by California-based Rocket Lab. The company’s Electron rocket will send a 50-pound probe on board its Photon spacecraft for the five-month, 38-million-mile journey to Venus, all for a three-minute skim through the Venusian clouds.
Using a laser instrument specially designed for the mission, the probe will aim to detect signs that complex chemistry is occurring within the droplets it encounters on its brief descent into the haze. Fluorescence or impurities detected in the droplets could indicate something more interesting than sulfuric acid might be wafting around up there, and add ammunition to the idea that parts of Venus’ atmosphere might be habitable.
Payload details:
Based on their research, the team also selected the scientific payload for the mission — which was restricted to just 1 kilogram. Seager says they settled on an instrument called an autofluorescing nephelometer because it could get the job done and was small, cheap, and could be built quickly enough for the compressed mission timeline.
The instrument is currently being built by a New Mexico-based company called Cloud Measurement Solutions, and a Colorado-based company called Droplet Measurement Technologies. The instrument is partially funded by MIT alumni.
Once the probe is in Venus’ atmosphere, the instrument will shine a laser out of a window onto cloud particles, causing any complex molecules within them to light up, or fluoresce. Many organic molecules, such as the amino acid tryptophan, have fluorescent properties.
The second VLF mission is scheduled for 2026, and the ultimate goal of the program is a Venus atmosphere sample return:
But whatever the 2023 mission finds, the next mission in the suite is already being planned for 2026. That probe would involve a larger payload, with a balloon that could spend more time in Venus’ clouds and conduct more extensive experiments. Results from that mission might then set the stage for the culmination of the Venus Life Finder Missions concept: return a sample of Venus’ atmosphere to Earth.
Details on the Venus Life Finder missions are available here (also attached [in original post]): https://venuscloudlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/VLFReport_12092021.pdf
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Here is Why Venus May Have Life with Dr. Janusz Petkowski:
https://youtu.be/fFYR3kDyhu8
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Engineers at West Virginia University are propelling exploration forward by creating control software for a group of aerial robots (aerobots) that will survey the atmosphere of Venus, the second planet from the sun.
According to researchers, Venus went through a climate change process that transformed it from an Earth-like environment to an inhospitable world. Studying Venus can help model the evolution of climate on Earth and serve as a reference for what can happen in the future.
Guilherme Pereira and Yu Gu, associate professors in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, tasked with developing the software for the aerobots, which are balloon-based robotic vehicles, hope to play a pivotal role in these discoveries. Their study is supported by a $100,000 NASA Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research.
“The main goal of the project is to propose a software solution that will allow hybrid aerobots to explore the atmosphere of Venus,” Pereira said. “Although hybrid vehicles were proposed before this project, we are not aware if any software has been created.”
One aerobot concept is the Venus Atmosphere Maneuverable Platform, which is a hybrid airship that uses both buoyancy and aerodynamic lift to control its altitude. The benefit of a hybrid aerobot is its ability to, during the day, behave like a plane, collecting and using energy from the sun to drive its motors, and, during the night, float like a balloon to save energy.
https://wvutoday.wvu.edu/stories/2021/12/09/wvu-engineers-creating-software-for-aerobots-to-explore-venus
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Into the mainstream media.
Venus could be becoming "more habitable" after evidence of bacterial "lifeforms" were found in its clouds, scientists have said.
Researchers from Cardiff University, MIT and Cambridge University have suggested the planet, which is 47.34m kilometres (29.42m miles) from Earth, could have the colourless gas made up of nitrogen and hydrogen that is also known as ammonia in its clouds.
The scientists have modelled a set of chemical processes to show how a cascade of chemical reactions would neutralise surrounding droplets of sulfuric acid if there were any traces of ammonia.
This would then result in the acidity of the clouds dropping from -11 to zero, and although this is still very acidic on the pH scale, it would be at a level that life could potentially survive at.
Co-author of the study Dr William Bains, from Cardiff University's School of Physics and Astronomy, said: "We know that life can grow in acid environments on Earth, but nothing as acid as the clouds of Venus were believed to be.
https://news.sky.com/story/venus-may-have-alien-lifeforms-in-its-clouds-scientists-suggest-12501366
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The Search for Life at Venus:
https://youtu.be/gL4wFayK0rQ
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The phosphine detection in the Venusian atmosphere has been re-confirmed using a different instrument on the same telescope.
Not included in the paper were a second round of JCMT observations from summer 2020 that have now been processed. Greaves reports that not only did JCMT see phosphine again, it did so using a different science instrument on the telescope. That means phosphine has been seen at three different points in time using three different telescope instruments at two different observatories.
What comes next? Greaves’ colleagues have been awarded 200 hours of JCMT time to observe Venus in 2022 and 2023, which will allow them to gather even more data.
Also a tentative detection from SOFIA as well.
Another new potential detection of phosphine comes from NASA’s flying SOFIA telescope.
SOFIA, which is scheduled to be shut down due to budget cuts on Sept. 30, searched for phosphine on Venus late last year. Greaves processed publicly available data from the flight and made a potential discovery of phosphine at 3 parts per billion, at an altitude of 65 kilometers (40 miles) or higher. This includes Venus’ highest-most clouds.
“I’d say there’s a hint of a detection there,” she said. “But it’s really tentative.”
NASA's DAVINCI, launching as early as 2028, will explore Venus' atmosphere. Greaves told The Planetary Society that “we’re about to make the case to the DAVINCI team” that the spacecraft should have the capability to search for phosphine.
https://www.planetary.org/articles/life-on-venus-new-updates
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I feel like the phosphine story leaves something really important out - we know SOOO little about Venus. Not even how volcanically active it is, basic things about its atmosphere, ect.
Its hard to explain how the phosphine is there (if it is) with what we KNOW about Venus. However, thats a tricky statement because we lack soo many of the basics about that planet.
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I feel like the phosphine story leaves something really important out - we know SOOO little about Venus. Not even how volcanically active it is, basic things about its atmosphere, ect.
Its hard to explain how the phosphine is there (if it is) with what we KNOW about Venus. However, thats a tricky statement because we lack soo many of the basics about that planet.
To be fair to her she’s quite clear that these detections do not equal detection of life and that there could be other explanations for its presence.
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New observations have again detected phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus.
More traces of a gas thought to be a sign of life have been found in the clouds and haze layers of Venus.
They come primarily from the first 50 of 200 hours of observations using the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) in Hawaii—far more than the eight hours used for the original detection—but also involve new data from NASA’s now defunct Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) airplane.
This is the key part.
JCMT’s latest detections of phosphine from February 2022 and May 2023 are significant because they hugely extend the scope of the initial study. They also suggest that there’s a steady source of phosphine either in or below the clouds of Venus.
“We now have five detections over the last few years, from three different sets of instruments, and from many methods of processing the data,” said Professor Jane Greaves, an astrobiologist at the School of Physics and Astronomy at Cardiff University whose team has been conducting tests as part of a 200-hour legacy survey using JCMT. “We’re getting a clue here that there is some steady source, which is the point of legacy surveys—to show whether that’s true or not,” said Greaves.
However, it’s DAVINCI+ (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging Plus) that could provide a phosphine detection in-situ. Scheduled to arrive in 2031, during a fatal 63-minute descent it will sample the Venusian atmosphere half a dozen times and fire lasers through it and measure the gases.
“They have four of these laser wavelengths to allocate and only three are decided,” said Greaves. “We made our case for phosphine and we’re just waiting for hear back.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2023/07/06/phosphine-confirmed-deep-within-venus-atmosphere-a-possible-sign-of-life/?sh=488e03531106
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This is an interview with Dr. Clara Sousa-Silva from 2 years ago, about the first phosphine detetction. She was one of the scientists involved with that. Since there's been a possible second detection, I thought I'd post it here if anyone's interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2A8aqHvA54 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2A8aqHvA54)
Of course, an interview with Dr. Jane Greaves - who led that effort - was posted upthread back when the first possible detection wasn't old news. So, I'll quote that post so it'll be faster for people to watch them together:
Cool Worlds talks with Professor Jane Greaves:
https://youtu.be/2GMW7GZAUfQ