Is There Someone Out There? 

Possible life found on Venus 

Researchers have recently discovered the pungent gas, Phosphine, in Venus’ atmosphere. Phosphine is a smelly flammable gas that harms life forms that rely on oxygen. Used in WWI as a weapon and a well-known by product of meth labs it is extremely strange that it was found in the atmosphere.  

The most logical explanation can be found when looking at anaerobic bacteria (bacteria that lives and thrives in oxygen-starved environments). Phosphine is a by-product of the anaerobic respiration that bacteria use to create energy and survive.  Phosphine is very hard to create and without these bacteria or in a lab. If there’s no microbial activity then this could be a strange chemical reaction or a false read, but scientists are hopeful about this possibility. 

Venus is a very inhabitable planet for humans. In the last billion years, it has been confirmed that a liquid water ocean had covered the surface of the planet. Now, however, Venus’ surface is 900 degrees Fahrenheit and the noxious gases in the atmosphere cause the air pressure to be 90 times what it feels like on Earth. In the journal, Nature, Carl Sagan and Harold Morowitz wrote that, “While the surface conditions of Venus make the hypothesis of life there implausible, the clouds of Venus are a different story altogether.” This is intriguing because the phosphine chemical was found in Venus’ atmosphere which correlates with researchers’ predictions of the micro-bacterial organisms creating this chemical in the clouds.  

Although this is not a confirmation that life is in fact on earth, it is a momentous stride in the study of interstellar life. For now, we are still left with the question: Is anyone out there?