Did Scientists Discover Life on Venus? MIT Professor Sara Seager and The Verge’s Loren Grush (#075)

  A conversation with MIT Professor Sara Seager and The Verge
Journalist Loren Grush, with Prof. Brian Keating. Loren Grush
writes: “Deep within the acidic clouds of Venus, astronomers have
detected a tantalizing gas never found on the planet before — a gas
that, remarkably, could be a sign of life on the hellish world. The
gas’s presence isn’t enough to say for sure that Venus hosts life
forms, but the fact that it exists in the planet’s clouds indicates
that something is going on there that we don’t fully understand.”
Read the press release:
https://news.mit.edu/2020/life-venus-phosphine-0914 Watch the press
release from MIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCXF8FUux74 Read
Loren’s coverage of the announcement:
https://www.theverge.com/21428796/venus-gas-life-sign-discovery-phosphine-biosignature
Project Website: https://venuscloudlife.com “The gas in question is
a nasty one called phosphine, a toxic and explosive molecule with a
lingering odor of garlic and dead fish. Astronomers discovered the
putrid gas lurking within a layer of clouds on Venus, where
temperatures are pretty close to those on our planet. They didn’t
find much — just small traces in the swirling mix of sulfuric acid
clouds that surround the planet. “It’s equivalent to a few
tablespoons in an Olympic sized swimming pool,” David Clements, an
astrophysicist at the Imperial College of London and part of the
team that made the discovery, tells The Verge. Learn more about
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