Venus always looks like the last place you will expect to find life. To melt lead with surface temperature and crush atmospheric pressure, our neighboring planets appear completely hostile. But high in its clouds, where the conditions are surprisingly like the Earth, scientists have made some extraordinary discovery: mysterious gases that should not be present, unless something is alive … maybe!
In the last five years, researchers have detected phosphine and ammonia in the atmosphere of Venus, two gases that are produced almost specifically on Earth by biological processes or industrial activity. Since Venus does not have a factory, the discovery has provoked one of the most complicated questions in astrobiology: can a microbial life swim in the clouds of the planet?
Now, a UK -backed mission has planned to answer that question once and for all. Jane GreavesA professor of astronomy at Cardiff University, and his team unveiled Varve (Venus Explorer for low vapor in the environment), An ambitious investigation that will stop a ride to Venus with the European Space Agency Indexed missionSet for 2031.
Phosphine discovery sparks debate
The story began in 2020 when Greaves and colleagues first discovered phosphine in Venus clouds James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii. The announcement sent shockwaves through the scientific community. On Earth, phosphine is produced mainly by anaerobic bacteria, germs, which thrive in oxygen -free environment in the courage of marshes such as swamps and animals. Finding it on Venus suggested the possibility of aerial life.
However, the search proved to be controversial. Follow comments by other teams Failed to repeat the conclusionsHot scientist leads to debate. But the Greaves team did not give up. Through continuous monitoring, he made some important discovery: Fosphine signal appeared to follow the day-night cycle of Venus, being destroyed by sunlight and varying with time and location throughout the planet.
The conspiracy became thick when the team announced the temporary identity of ammonia in the clouds of Venus. Like phosphine, ammonia on earth is mainly manufactured by biological activity and industrial processes. But there are no known atmospheric or geological phenomena that can explain their appearance on Venus.
Varva Mission targeted the clouds of Venus
The proposed VRVE mission will cost £ 43 million (about US $ 58 million), which is a fraction of the specific planet mission, and will discover and map these gases with other hydrogen rich compounds that should not be present on Venus. Cubsat’s size probe will separate from imagination on arrival and conduct an independent survey, while the main mission studies the surface and interior of the Venus.
The target area for potential life is about 50 kilometers above the Venusian surface, where the temperature varies from a comfortable 30 ° C to 70 ° C and the atmospheric pressure resembles the Earth’s surface conditions. In this “Goldelox area“The atmosphere, extremist microbes (organisms that flourish in harsh conditions) can survive theoretically.
These creatures can be more than Venus from more temperate past. Billions of years ago, it may have liquid water -like oceans and earth conditions. As the fugitive greenhouse effect of the planet was caught, any life that existed, may have retreated from the more hospitality cloud layers to develop to survive in this air niche.
The only way to solve the mystery for once and for all is a direct investigation and, if successful, the mission can mark one of the most important discoveries in human history: proof that life exists beyond the earth.
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