Life on Venus

Over the past years, due to the existence of habitable conditions on Mars such as liquid water, many scientists hypothesized the possibility that humans can live on Mars in the future. But what if there was a possibility of life on other planets as well? What about Venus?

What is Venus?

Although Venus is not the closet planet to the Sun, it is known for its hot and hellish surface.

It's thick atmosphere made up of carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid clouds, which traps heat and makes Venus very hot. It is a very active terrestrial planet with mountains and active volcanoes.

Here's an image of Venus' clouds covering the planet:

Although it is similar in size with Earth, Venus spins the opposite direction of Earth and most other planets. Also, since it is closer to the Sun than the Earth, a year goes by faster. It takes Earth 243 Earth days to rotate around the Sun just once whilst Venus only needs 225 Earth days.

How is there possible life on Venus?

According to livescience.com, a team of researchers announced their discovery of phosphine molecules, which were only known to be created by living creatures on earth, in the cloud layers of Venus. This unexplained chemical gave a possible hint that life could exist on Venus.

This phosphine gas (PH3) found in the upper clouds of Venus is a substance commonly found in anaerobic bacteria or is caused by human activities. It exists in other gas giant planets due to chemical processes that allow three hydrogen atoms and a phosphorus atom to bind. But scientists had no explanation for its existence on Venus as there were no known chemical processes available to generate it, so they assumed that living organisms on Venus were the only possible reason for its existence. Hence, they assumed that life may exist on Venus.

How did they discover it?

Well, back in June 2017, that team of researchers pointed a telescope towards Venus to look for signatures of phosphine to benchmark future developments and unexpectedly, they found a detectable amount of PH3 there. To confirm this, the team used a more advanced telescope aimed at Venus. The telescope they used allowed them to view variations in the light coming from Venus's upper atmosphere which showed a considerable amount of PH3.

Wow, it's probably just some 'grand claim'.

Yes, that may be true. The phosphine gas created could've been caused some unknown chemical process that haven't been discovered yet. Plus, with Venus' hot and toxic atmosphere, it could even destroy the hardiest robots within minutes.

However, it is still possible for life to exist in the planet's uppermost cloud layers due to the existence of phosphine there, which means that Venus could plausibly off a habitat for some kind of floating life. This also means that if we were to live on Venus someday, it would most likely be in some sort of floating spacecraft! How cool is that?

So what do you think? Can we live on Venus? or will we just die in its hellish atmosphere? Share your thoughts in the comments section!

Here's a potato for the long post :)

Have fun learning!💕

References:

“All About Venus.” NASA, NASA, 2 June 2020, spaceplace.nasa.gov/all-about-venus/en/

Letzter, Rafi. “Possible Hint of Life Discovered on Venus.” LiveScience, Purch, 14 Sept. 2020, www.livescience.com/phosphine-signature-life-on-venus.html

“Life on Mars.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Sept. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_on_Mars

Mann, Adam. “'Grand Claims' of Life on Venus Lack Evidence, Skeptics Say.” LiveScience, Purch, 22 Sept. 2020, www.livescience.com/skepticism-life-on-venus.html

Williams, Dave, and Jay Friedlander. “Venus - Venera 13 Lander.” NASA, NASA, 24 Sept. 2015, nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/imgcat/html/object_page/v13_vg261_262.html