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Life on Venus? Astronomers See a Signal in Its Clouds
- perihelions 6y agoHere's the research paper (full paper, open access) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-020-1174-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-020-1174-4
- buryat 6y agoeven Venus life moved into the clouds
- shadowgovt 6y agoI think that's unclear at this time; IIUC, the phosphine could be generated at ground level, since Venus's atmosphere is so thick that it'd have to be lifted up a bit before UV light can start breaking it down.
- naravara 6y agoThe paper posits the microbes living in droplets in the clouds hypothesis. Heat and pressure at ground level are not as conducive to life.
- macintux 6y agoExtensive discussion yesterday; https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24463423 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24463423
- codethief 6y agoAnd earlier today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24467635 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24467635
- admiralspoo 6y agoDon't hold your breath. 1) there is doubt about the quality of the radio detection 2) the same group of authors have been promoting this for years 3) Nature Astronomy, not Nature proper
- aquova 6y agoSource on these doubts? This discovery is backed by the Royal Astronomical Society and MIT, which seems to imply the observations have been sound.
- orev 6y agoHaving doubt is the default position in science. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It’s an interesting finding, but it’s prudent to remain skeptical.
- aquova 6y agoI agree in principle, but the statement "there is doubt about the quality of the radio detection" implies that there have been concrete issues pointed out about the basis of these findings, which I haven't heard anywhere else.
- willis936 6y agoIn fairness, it is too early to have a thorough review. The press conference and paper are less than an hour old. Be wary of anyone making bold claims right now, author or armchair scientist.
- nabla9 6y ago>Still, John Carpenter, an ALMA observatory scientist, is skeptical that the phosphine observations themselves are real. The signal is faint, and the team needed to perform an extensive amount of processing to pull it from the data returned by the telescopes. That processing, he says, may have returned an artificial signal at the same frequency as phosphine. He also notes that the standard for remote molecular identification involves detecting multiple fingerprints for the same molecule, which show up at different frequencies on the electromagnetic spectrum. That’s something that the team has not yet done with phosphine. >“They took the right steps to verify the signal, but I’m still not convinced that this is real,” Carpenter says. “If it’s real, it’s a very cool result, but it needs follow-up to make it really convincing.” >Sousa-Silva agrees that the team needs to confirm the phosphine detection by finding additional fingerprints at other wavelengths. She and her colleagues had planned such observations using the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, a plane-mounted telescope, and with NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii. But COVID-19 got in the way, and the team’s attempts have been put on hold. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/09/possible-sign-of-life-found-on-venus-phosphine-gas/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/09/possible-...
- superkuh 6y agoAt the time I am posting this comment the press briefing is live on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1u-jlf_Olo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1u-jlf_Olo
- zurfer 6y agobetter title: phosphine found in venus atmosphere, some scientists suspect microbes
- biggestlou 6y agoI’m still looking for intelligent life on THIS planet!
- c22 6y agoNeeds a little more work still. Maybe try using italics instead of caps?
- ve55 6y agoGiven how low my prior would be that life currently exists on Venus compared to all the other possible explanations for this, I wouldn't count on it at this point Surprised this comment has a negative score, I'd be willing to bet at 50/50 that life on Venus won't be found within the next 5 years, there are a lot of alternative explanations with reasonable priors
- sonofgod 6y agoThe probability of developing a probe, it travelling to Venus and analysing the data from it within that timescale is worse than 50/50.
- merricksb 6y agoEarlier discussion, still on the front page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24467635 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24467635
- sto_hristo 6y agoI called 2020 August to be the aliens month and 2020 September the random explosions month. But i'm contempt with this resolution as well.