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The thinking seems to go like this: 1. phosphine is found on earth in low-oxygen environments that harbor life (e.g., swamps) 2. abiological routes to phosphi
by aazaa 6y ago
The thinking seems to go like this:
1. phosphine is found on earth in low-oxygen environments that harbor life (e.g., swamps)
2. abiological routes to phosphine, although known, require unusual reagents and/or elevated temperatures
This 2019 article gives some background:
https://news.mit.edu/2019/phosphine-aliens-stink-1218 https://news.mit.edu/2019/phosphine-aliens-stink-1218
Here's some evidence of phosphine production in a swamp:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0146638095000216 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/014663...
This leaves (2), which is a bear because it states a negative. The claim that the phosphine on Venus is biological in origin requires no feasible route to the substance given the known chemistry of the planet's atmosphere.
Given that Venus' atmosphere is a complex mixture held at very high temperature and pressure, the "sign" seems pretty weak here.
- Jetroid 6y agoAgreed. I think an unknown route to phosphine generation seems simpler and more likely than a biological explanation. YMMV. Occam's razor would therefore imply that this is not life.
- pdabbadabba 6y agoI think it's debatable, at best, whether Occam's razor would favor "an unknown process" over a known biological process. Especially when some research apparently has already been done, without success, to discover alternate processes. (And, by the way, the unknown process could also be biological!)
- TheDesolate0 6y agoyeah, but it's never aliens until it's aliens.
- appleiigs 6y agoWell... a biological process would be “rare” outside of earth, so if I was a betting man...
- Koshkin 6y agoMilky Way contains on the order of half a trillion star systems. Would having, say, a million planets carrying some form of life in our galaxy alone qualify as “rare”?
- JauntTrooper 6y agoWe also know that our solar system has exactly the right conditions needed for life.
- brianberns 6y agoNo, we know that our planet has the right conditions for life. The conditions on Venus are very different.
- addicted 6y agoThat would be rare. I also suspect 1 million is a massive underestimation.
- saberdancer 6y agoTo be fair, I wouldn't consider that rare. When we talk about life, we usually think in terms of are we alone. If there are a million planets with life, life isn't rare, regardless of what percentage of planets have life.
- DennisP 6y agoWould it? Seems to me we have no idea how rare it is. For all we know it might be quite common.
- appleiigs 6y agoYou're implying we don't have any information at all. We do. Even if you argue is it's limited, to our knowledge bio processes outside of earth has been zero. Whereas, non-bio chemical processes is greater than zero. So now people want to bet on that it's bio??
- Voloskaya 6y agoYou don't know if an unknown route to phosphine generation would be simpler and more likely, you would just find such an announcement more mundane, which you mistake for it being more plausible. Invoking Occam's razor to compare two unknowns makes about 0 sense.
- yreg 6y agoThere is research saying that such unknown phosphine generation is not a simple explanation at all. e.g. http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/phosphine-biosignature-gas-07957.html http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/phosphine-biosignature-gas... >The scientists found that phosphine has no significant false positives, meaning any detection of phosphine is a sure sign of life.
- cowboysauce 6y ago>Given that Venus' atmosphere is a complex mixture held at very high temperature and pressure, the "sign" seems pretty weak here. The phosphine signal is coming from a portion of Venus' atmosphere that has pressure and temperatures similar to that of the the Earth's surface, according the the Earth and Sky article.
- UncleOxidant 6y agoIs it possible that the phosphine is being generated in the high temperature, high pressure zone and drifting up into this temperate zone?
- cowboysauce 6y agoNot really. Phosphine is broken down by UV light so having it be concentrated higher in the atmosphere, where it's exposed to more UV light, would be difficult to explain via transport from a lower altitude source.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoNot if it gets produced and transported (slightly) faster than it's broken down.
- beowulfey 6y agoThis is a possibility but we’ll have to see what the paper makes of this, if anything. It may depend on knowing more about the motion of the atmosphere. It was also an unexpectedly large amount of phosphine apparently, more than would normally be stable at that altitude (so it’s definitely being renewed). But again, this is just a string of tweets—hard to say anything without the paper!
- BurningFrog 6y agoYeah, "wind" seems like it could explain much here.