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Possible discovery of life on Venus UPDATE: Phosphine discovered in the upper atmosphere
- Thread starter GokouD
- Start date
Probably a very bad sign for the ultimate fate of humanity if this is true. Be cool if it is though.
JUST earlier yesterday i read in New Scientist that Venus might have harbored life for billions of years, because the slow rotation (one earth day takes 8 months) helps create a thick protective cloud layer (from Sun's harmful radiation) and keep it in place..
really incredible news if they've found convincing chemical signals. now search for more? send probes..?! argh so exciting, a neighbor planet might very likely have LIFE!
really incredible news if they've found convincing chemical signals. now search for more? send probes..?! argh so exciting, a neighbor planet might very likely have LIFE!
in terms of size and mass, proximity to the sun & makeup it's actually very, very close to Earth. Had its atmosphere not been an acidic hellscape, things like gravity would actually make it better for humans to live on long term without the muscle degeneration we'd get from living on Mars and its 1/3rd gravity.
The incredibly dense acidic atmo is definitely a problem though, however its been theorised that we could potentially found some kind of floating installation above that.
Well that could go two ways. If they were Venusian-native tardigrades, that suggests a whole tree of life, far more advanced than microbes. If they were Earth-native tardigrades, then they're most likely from Earth and could be a temporary phenomenon on Venus.
It has a temperate zone higher up in its atmosphere. There was some speculation about the possibility of building balloon-mounted human habitats there - that's probably not really workable, but maybe the fact that it was even considered gives some idea of how close it is to being suitable conditions for life.
In some ways, sure. There's no reasonable way to give Mars an atmosphere, while the problem on Venus is having too much atmosphere (specifically pressure) and it's theoretically possible to imagine getting rid of some of that pressure. If the atmosphere could be tamed then Venus has the benefit of being almost identical in size and composition to Earth, meaning almost identical gravity, though that also sucks for launches and landings. Day length is a bit of a pain too, but that can potentially be solved with orbital infrastructure.
Of course, if there are microbes there, then that idea goes away.
No need to wait for hours, this has been embargoed for days and there's been enough hints from journalists that we know what it is. Plus someone broke embargo, as posted by CDX - so we know what's being announced today.
Spectroscopy. Discovery of gas molecules that have no known natural reason to exist other than being produced through biological processes.
I suspect that most forms of life would probably think this about most other forms of life. Like, we live in an atmosphere that's 20% poisonous gas.
whoa, exciting stuff!
even if it is just microbial life as OP said, this is still life on another planet. this opens up the possibility of life in so many other places
even if it is just microbial life as OP said, this is still life on another planet. this opens up the possibility of life in so many other places
It is, this is the pic we have of the surface from the Soviet probe
But we have some microbes that are tough as nails even on Earth, so nothing is impossible
Also it's pretty established that Venus used to have water Oceans that evaporated due to a runaway greenhouse effect, so if there's life on Venus it could be a remnant of a time when it was more hospitable
What if Venus was just future Earth all along...
Nah climate change itself wouldn't be enough to do that.
The sun ageing and burning hotter/expanding will though. Fun fact, Earth will end up like, much much worse than Venus. We, unlike that planet, have a magnetic field so when the oceans evaporate the sun won't be able to blast away the water molecules in the atmosphere which are better at trapping heat.
On topic interested to see what comes of this. It's been said for ages that areas of the Venusian atmosphere are potentially habital for microbial life.
Assuming that it exists, this microbial life is within the atmosphere of Venus, so a probe would need to get to Venus (the easy part), descend into the atmosphere, start collecting atmospheric samples on the way down (each sample collected would comprise its aerodynamics so controlling speed and heat would be a huge problem), and then somehow analyse them. Also the atmosphere is highly acidic so everything used has to be acid-resistant (or operate within the length of time that it can survive).
Somewhat conveniently, India has a proposed Venus mission with a balloon component to study the atmosphere, which was suggested to launch in 2023. The timeline is a bit tight but with something this big, there might be enough international will to get that funded and kitted out with a full set of the most potentially useful equipment.
Ah that's crazy though. Microbes being discovered is huge. Life being found on two different planets in the same solar system independently of each other speaks volumes to how life elsewhere could be just as likely.
Detecting alien life,even "just microbes", could be one of the biggest deals we encounter in our lifetime.
Could also bring the world somewhat more together with hugely increased spending on space programs to get to Venus and back with a Probe and ultimately teach us a lot about our place in the universe.
Could also bring the world somewhat more together with hugely increased spending on space programs to get to Venus and back with a Probe and ultimately teach us a lot about our place in the universe.
Venus is actually probably better option for human colonization than Mars is. High enough in the atmosphere you actually have temps that are somewhat livable (between 25 to 75C depending on how up we could get these floating colonies), protection against radiation (unlike in Moon and Mars) and near earth gravity (easier for human body). Of course this would require floating cities.
I was going to make this thread last night, glad you beat me to it op. :D
Incredibly exciting findings, my only question...does this put "The Great Filter" behind us or ahead of us?
Incredibly exciting findings, my only question...does this put "The Great Filter" behind us or ahead of us?
I was reading that Venus May have had liquid oceans for as much as 2.5 billion years, PLENTY of time for life to evolve.
Makes you wonder though. Maybe there really was intelligent life on Venus up to 700 million years ago and they either left or died after the planet ending feedback loop happened.
Makes you wonder though. Maybe there really was intelligent life on Venus up to 700 million years ago and they either left or died after the planet ending feedback loop happened.
Probes to get there, yeah, absolutely possible.
Nothing's getting into the atmosphere of Venus and back out again and then back to Earth, though, not with current technology or anything like it. We'll have to be content with automated analysis and getting results relayed back to us by radio.
Above zero. But probably not far above. Only a few landers have ever made it into the Venusian atmosphere. Anything that survived the journey would have needed to survive ~4 months in space, then the descent through the atmosphere, managed to exit the craft at a suitable point in the atmosphere, and established itself well enough within that environment within 50 years that it was producing quantities of phosphine that could be detected on Earth via telescope.
None of those steps are impossible, but in combination they're very unlikely. Still, it's a question that does need to be asked and addressed.
And the closest planet to earth and yet it still potentially has life.
What does that say about life throughout the universe? How common could it actually be, how complex beyond just microbes?
Makes you wonder what we don't know. It also makes me really want us to get our shit together on our planet so we can explore it.
That's great! I know people have talked about this as a possibility, didn't realise India was actually working on it.
If only micro organisms, this is good news regarding the great filter.
The bad news would be to find ruins or a stone age like civilization
My understanding is that the discovery of micro organisms would increase the chance of the great filter being ahead of us. If we discover that life is fairly common but have yet to discover intelligent life, it's not a good sign.
Back in 1961, before we had a good understanding of conditions on Venus, Arthur C. Clarke wrote a short story called "Before Eden" about the first astronauts to explore the surface of Venus, and the contamination they left behind...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_Eden
This is amazing. I can't wait for my son and daughter (though shes 5) to get home from school and talk about this.
As far as I remember, the gist of it was that turning Venus into a planet with living conditions similar to Earth, while a massive and titanic task that would take millenia to achieve, would still be easier than doing same on Mars, a planet without an atmosphere and a magnetic field to hold it. The fact that Mars won't murder a dude in space-suit like Venus is actually misleading in that regard.
As a side-note, terraforming is overrated. If you have the space infrastructure and technology necessary to make that happen, you probably don't really need an Earth-like planet to live on anymore. Being able to make perfectly adequate artificial space habitats is a good dozen steps below being capable of finishing terraforming projects on the space futurism progression ladder.
Sep: Life on Venus.
Oct: Promising vaccine trial results.
Nov: Trump loses election.
Dec: Yo, next month Trump won't be prez anymore!
Smooth sailing into 2021.
Micro organisms would be better than ruins. It holds out the possibility that the Great Filter is in between microbial and intelligent life, and we already passed it.