Since thepossible find of phosphinein the atmosphere of Venus two long time ago , there ’s been speculation that maybe life could survive in the temperate regions of theclouds of Venus . Many have investigated the possibleness , but presently , it seems unlikely . The peculiar mystery of the Venusian atmosphere can not be explained by the presence of life .
At least , that ’s the stopping point of a novel report published inNature Communicationstesting out the " biography in the cloud " hypothesis . The closed book in head is the comportment of S dioxide ( SO2 ) which is receive in teemingness lower in the clouds of Venus but vanishes as the altitude increases .
One proposed hypothesis is that there are life form floating about in the loggerheaded blanket of cloud , sucking up the atomic number 16 . Life can truly do a issue on global atmospheres , so it would n’t be out of the realm of the possibilities . The researchers modeled three potential ways for microorganism to use sulfur dioxide . Each one of them violates some other observational constraint , however .
“ We count at the sulphur - based ‘ food ’ available in the Venusian standard pressure – it ’s not anything you or I would want to eat , but it is the main available energy source , ” go author Sean Jordan , from the University of Cambridge ’s Institute of Astronomy , said in astatement . “ If that food is being consume by lifespan , we should see grounds of that through specific chemicals being lost and gained in the atmosphere . ”
“ We ’ve spent the retiring two year attempt to excuse the weird sulphur interpersonal chemistry we see in the clouds of Venus , ” added co - author Dr Paul Rimmer from the Department of Earth Sciences . “ life story is pretty good at unearthly chemistry , so we ’ve been studying whether there ’s a room to make life history a likely explanation for what we see . ”
So these Venusian spirit forms should be secrete a circumstances of other particle after take in the sulphur . But none of those molecules have been observed on Venus . The researchers found that a atomic number 16 - sucking animation form could exist and possibly it does somewhere else in the world , but it is unlikely that it exists on Venus .
“ If sprightliness was responsible for the SO2levels we see on Venus , it would also break everything we cognise about Venus ’s atmospherical chemistry , ” said Jordan . “ We want life to be a potential explanation , but when we ran the models , it is n’t a viable result . But if life is n’t responsible for for what we see on Venus , it ’s still a job to be solved – there ’s lots of strange interpersonal chemistry to follow up on . ”
young observations of Venus from upcoming missionary work byNASAand theEuropean Space Agencycould provide the essential missing pieces to fill out the puzzle that is the Venusian atmospheric state .
