Life on Venus: Plain Sulfur Dioxide Instead of Phosphine?

In September 2020, a team claimed that there was phosphine on Venus. Researchers reported The spectral signature of the gas is discovered in telescope data. Since some people interpreted it as a sign of a possible life – creatures floating among Venus’ clouds can release gas – the excitement was instantly great, even if there was immediate suspicion.

Since then, several studies have challenged, if not outright forbidden, reports. The authors, in turn, have now admitted that there were errors »in the original processing of the ALMA Observatory data, on which the work in this article is based, and that the recalculation of the data has implications for the conclusions that can be drawn«, as Can be read in a note for paper.

Now another team of scientists has published the biggest review. “What we are bringing to the table is a great form, another way to explain this data,” says Victoria Meadows, an astronomer at the University of Washington in Seattle, who contributed to the new studies. Both papers were accepted for publication by “Astrophysical Journal Letters” and were published on January 26, 2021 on the Preference Server “ArcXiv”.

An alternative explanation is sulfur dioxide

In one study, Meadows and his colleagues analyzed data from one of the binoculars used to claim phosphine. You Could not discover spectral signature of gas. In the second, scientists calculated how gases would behave in Venus’s atmosphere and concluded that what the original team thought was actually sulfur dioxide (SO)₂) is. Venus has gas and is common No sign of possible life.

“This makes the whole debate about phosphine and possible life in the Venus environment very irrelevant.”
(Ignas Snellen, Astronom)

The current work clearly showed that there was no evidence of gas, says Ignas Snellen, an astronomer at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Which also published criticism of the phosphine claim. “This makes the whole debate about phosphine and possible life in the Venus environment very irrelevant.”

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Jane Greaves says that she and her colleagues will read the new work and comment on it after evaluating it. Astronomers from Cardiff University, UK, led the team that claimed the original phosphine.