Venus with a sign of life
For the first time, scientists discover signs of life on Venus.
 |
| venus |
A joint international research team has been able to find chemical signs indicating the possibility of life on Venus, and this is the first time that scientists have been able to watch for these signs after they were just predictions. decades.
Signs of life.
The results were published in the journal Nature Astronomy and announced on the European Science Observatory (ESO) website on September 14/2020.To reach it, scientists used the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope for a Short Time (JCMT), located in the US Hawaiian Islands, to observe the atmosphere of Venus.
After that, these results were confirmed using the Atacama Large Millimeter Array, or ALMA for short, which is located in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile and contains 45 maps, which allowed scientists to monitor the planet's atmosphere and analyze its components with a high degree of precision.
According to the new study, the team was surprised at the presence of large amounts of phosphine, PH3, in the planet's atmosphere. That was not planned.
Phosphine gas is formed on Earth due to the presence of living organisms, either due to human activity or the metabolism of certain types of bacteria, and scientists do not know - according to the study - any chemical methods for its production on Venus.
This led to the conclusion that the presence of phosphine has a possible relationship with the presence of living organisms - possibly bacteria - in the planet's atmosphere, but this does not mean confirmation of the existence of life. there, because there may be chemical mechanisms. that scientists do not yet understand what caused this, especially since the atmosphere of Venus is dense. It is very rich in complex chemical compounds that can unwittingly interact with each other or with sunlight.
Earth twin.
Venus is called "Earth's twin" because it is almost similar to our planet in size but completely different in everything else. There, massive global warming has caused it to reach 465 degrees Celsius, which is higher than the daytime temperature of Mercury, which is closest to the sun.It is believed that Venus was once as blue as Earth over 4 billion years ago, but due to the increasing activity of the sun, its oceans have evaporated to create this very dense atmosphere.
The researchers hope that these results will help in directing the eyes of researchers, and their telescopes, by extension, towards one of the planets closest to Earth, hoping that we can monitor any image of life on it, but until this moment we do not know a home for life except our good earth.