Life on Venus?

[kerbiloid]

Just googled "phosphine" and immediately found who produces it.

Spoiler

Do you see?

On the very top, with eyes. Sits and produces phosphine.

 

[NFUN]

1 hour ago, Dragon01 said:

We know phosphine can be naturally produced in high temperatures, this happens on Jupiter, for instance. What got people so excited is that Venus is hot, but not that hot. Either there's some place in there where there's a 500K+ hotspot, or some other process is at work here. This could be geochemistry, but one thing life does is produce molecules that are typically difficult to make otherwise. 

This actually got me thinking. We know terrestrial life can make phosphine, and that there are species that could survive in the atmosphere of Venus. Were the Venera probes decontaminated? I'm not sure if Soviets had an equivalent to Planetary Protection Officer at the time, and even if they did, they knew Venus was a hellhole back then, and extremophiles were poorly researched at the time. I wonder, what are the chances that one of those hitched a ride in one of the parachute containers, or on a balloon probe, and, having found a perfect environment, spread far enough for its metabolites to show up? It's a rather disturbing thought. 

1/2^n, for arbitrarily large values of n

[Guest]

It's unlikely for sure, but you're probably underestimating it. Remember, we know that there are bacteria on Earth that could survive in conditions similar to the upper atmosphere of Venus. I'm not sure if this particular species produces phosphine, but it might. Either way, a bacteria in an unconstrained environment could grow rapidly, remember how long it's been since the Venera missions went there. This sounds crazy, but it's exactly the sort of thing NASA was worried about when they introduced a dedicated job to make sure that doesn't happen (albeit I don't think they were worried about Venus in particular). 

 

[Guest]

Jim Bridenstine:

 

Looks like NASA is prioritizing Venus once again. Probably means they are now making plans to explore Venus

Rocket Lab has also announced a 2023 mission to Venus

 

[cubinator]

2 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

It's unlikely for sure, but you're probably underestimating it. Remember, we know that there are bacteria on Earth that could survive in conditions similar to the upper atmosphere of Venus. I'm not sure if this particular species produces phosphine, but it might. Either way, a bacteria in an unconstrained environment could grow rapidly, remember how long it's been since the Venera missions went there. This sounds crazy, but it's exactly the sort of thing NASA was worried about when they introduced a dedicated job to make sure that doesn't happen (albeit I don't think they were worried about Venus in particular). 

 

Are there measurements from decades ago that could be used to determine whether the production of phosphine started recently?

[Qubyte]

2 hours ago, The Doodling Astronaut said:

Jim Bridenstine:

 

Looks like NASA is prioritizing Venus once again. Probably means they are now making plans to explore Venus

Rocket Lab has also announced a 2023 mission to Venus

 

Looks like NASA needs to drop https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/49443-airships-in-110-hooliganlabs-mods/ in their GameData folder.

[kerbiloid]

3 hours ago, cubinator said:

Are there measurements from decades ago that could be used to determine whether the production of phosphine started recently?

Like in the parody movie they were defining the intensity of the crew psychological stress by measuring the concentration of hydrogen sulfide in cabin, on Venus we have unexpectedly started phosphine production by scaring locals with hot metallic things falling from sky in flames.

 

[munlander1]

11 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

I wonder, what are the chances that one of those hitched a ride in one of the parachute containers, or on a balloon probe, and, having found a perfect environment, spread far enough for its metabolites to show up?

My understanding from the very little amount of reading I have done on the topic is that the abundance of sulfuric acid would kill any life from Earth.

Edited September 15, 2020 by munlander1
Its 2:20am

[Guest]

It wouldn't. There are several forms of life that live in volcanic springs and other extremely acidic environments. In fact, those very organisms can usually tolerate high temperatures, too. They do not need oxygen to function. In fact, that's why the part about atmosphere of Venus being a perfect environment for them is the least far-fetched idea here.

9 hours ago, cubinator said:

Are there measurements from decades ago that could be used to determine whether the production of phosphine started recently?

There's data from Venera, which did measure atmosphere composition. It's certainly worth a second look, though I suspect that someone would have noticed it if we had this evidence earlier. That said, with Mars getting all the attention, it's possible that it was in the data all along, and it was overlooked.

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, Dragon01 said:

It wouldn't. There are several forms of life that live in volcanic springs and other extremely acidic environments. In fact, those very organisms can usually tolerate high temperatures, too. They do not need oxygen to function. In fact, that's why the part about atmosphere of Venus being a perfect environment for them is the least far-fetched idea here.

There's data from Venera, which did measure atmosphere composition. It's certainly worth a second look, though I suspect that someone would have noticed it if we had this evidence earlier. That said, with Mars getting all the attention, it's possible that it was in the data all along, and it was overlooked.

Yes but would any of them make it onto an Venus probe? Assuming it was build in clean room or close to it I think that it would be transferred by humans onto the parts. 
Also they live in water, acid water without oxygen but still water, Venus is very dry. 

If its life in Venus atmosphere I say its much more likely it originated there and some airborne microbes was able to evolve the worsening conditions high in the air. 
Now it could be the same life as on Earth via perspemia but it could also be independent life originating on Venus 

 

[Scotius]

Ever since i learned of the existence of glass-eating microbes couple of years ago, i promised myself to not get surprised anymore when i read about astounding ability of life to thrive in most unlikely conditions.

And yet, here I am - scratching my head and wondering how anything could live in that percolating pressure cooker full of acid that is venusian atmosphere.

[sevenperforce]

15 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

It's unlikely for sure, but you're probably underestimating it. Remember, we know that there are bacteria on Earth that could survive in conditions similar to the upper atmosphere of Venus. I'm not sure if this particular species produces phosphine, but it might. Either way, a bacteria in an unconstrained environment could grow rapidly, remember how long it's been since the Venera missions went there. This sounds crazy, but it's exactly the sort of thing NASA was worried about when they introduced a dedicated job to make sure that doesn't happen (albeit I don't think they were worried about Venus in particular). 

To be clear, the Venera landers WERE sterilized prior to encapsulation and launch. It's not like the USSR didn't even try.

I don't, however, know how good of a job the USSR did sterilizing them.

3 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

12 hours ago, cubinator said:

Are there measurements from decades ago that could be used to determine whether the production of phosphine started recently?

There's data from Venera, which did measure atmosphere composition. It's certainly worth a second look, though I suspect that someone would have noticed it if we had this evidence earlier. That said, with Mars getting all the attention, it's possible that it was in the data all along, and it was overlooked.

The measurements would be from spectra, not atmospheric composition; a digital sniffer on Venera wouldn't have picked up anything. I don't know what spectrometric resolution you need in order to resolve the signature of phosphine. There were published spectra measurements in 1968, 1975, 1985, 2013, and 2017 but I don't know anything about how good the resolution was. 

Now that we know where to look, it would be interesting to hunt through that data. Of course we would also need to know what concentration was measured recently in order to know whether finding or not-finding phosphine would be significant.

[kerbiloid]

The executive director for promising programs and science of Roscosmos A. Bloshenko doesn't see evidences of the Venusian life existence and believes that only in-situ researches can bring them.
He also reminds that the USSR was the only country able to run such researches, and that Venera/Venus-13 was working for 127 minutes on surface.
Also he mentioned the objects on the surface, recently discovered by the Russian scientists on the Soviet Venusian photos and requiring further exploration to realize, how much right they were.
(The widely-known in their time stone-shaped ones, I remember them from the Young Technicist magazine in 1980s. It was written that they had changed their position on two photos)
Also he mentioned the Venera/Venus-D craft (made basically by the Russia herself with reduced international participation) going to research the Venusian surface, its atmosphere and ground, and the evolution of the planet, including its greenhouse climatic catastrophe in the past.

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=ru&sl=ru&tl=en&u=https://www.rbc.ru/society/15/09/2020/5f60af959a794767b41bc6d6

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=ru&sl=ru&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.roscosmos.ru%2F29217%2F&sandbox=1

***

Just in case if somebody of you incidentally haven't read in 1980s the Young Technicist, you can google for enlightment

https://www.google.com/search?q=фото+венера+живые+камни&oq=фото+венера+живые+камни&aqs=chrome..69i57.5885j1j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

https://www.google.com/search?source=univ&tbm=isch&q=фото+венера+живые+камни&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjfwc2_o-vrAhUFx4sKHa7OA24QsAR6BAgKEAE

and transgoogle it from Russian. It's just too much for me.

Basically, they are them, and similar.

Spoiler

(What do you say now, Elon Musk, with your stupid perchlorated Mars? Who needs it?!)

***

Milner's Foundation is going to fund the search for the life in Venusian clouds by the international team of astronomers, physicists, geologists, biologists, and engineers lead by Sara Seager from MIT.

Spoiler

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=ru&sl=ru&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rbc.ru%2Fbusiness%2F15%2F09%2F2020%2F5f60a7ed9a794763af12a832

***

Rogozin called the Venus a "true hell" and a "Russian planet" and reminded that Russia is preparing a research program together with USA, but maybe will run and her own one.

He told that Russia was the only country there, and the conditions there are a true hell.
(Technically, one of the minor Pioneer-Venus-2 probes had unexpectedly landed and survived for an hour, but obviously just for lulz, as it wasn't equipped with anything but the atmospheric fly-through sci-things).

"However, we believe that the Venus is a Russian planet".

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=ru&sl=ru&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rbc.ru%2Ftechnology_and_media%2F15%2F09%2F2020%2F5f609e3c9a79475f08905cb7

Edited September 15, 2020 by kerbiloid

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, Scotius said:

Ever since i learned of the existence of glass-eating microbes

Spoiler

An armored concrete building after the Bear Grylls show.

 

[Clamp-o-Tron]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

 

  Hide contents

 

 

Ahh, funny looking rodent-like rocks. Didn't this happen on a merlin engine and on mars? Do oblong globs of metal/rocks count as rodent-like? Anyway, macroscopic life at Venus surface level is almost definetly impossible.

Phosphine on Venus would be VERY exciting, either as a biosignature or some weird chemistry, but we shouldn't be diverting resources to Venus balloons just yet. The findings need to be confirmed, peer reviewed etc. Just the proper scientific process.

 

[kerbiloid]

5 minutes ago, Clamp-o-Tron said:

Ahh, funny looking rodent-like rocks. Didn't this happen on a merlin engine and on mars? Do oblong globs of metal/rocks count as rodent-like?

Iirc, they were present / not present on sequential photos. So, they were moving_{, sniffing and liquiding.}

Edited September 15, 2020 by kerbiloid

[Clamp-o-Tron]

Globs of liquid? Very unlikely photo artifacts? LENS CAPS?

[kerbiloid]

That's why we need a trip (in good sense) to Venus.

I just can't see why nobody is taking into account a more probable source of the phosphine than Venusian slugs.

Spoiler

A derelict alien ship still producing by-products of the life support system.

 

6 minutes ago, Clamp-o-Tron said:

Globs of liquid?

Filter of words.

Edited September 15, 2020 by kerbiloid

[KerikBalm]

I would bet 10:1 odds against it, which is still fairly high.

The combination of conditions makes it very unlikely, even if any one particular condition is not a deal breaker.

Some abiotic source is still much more likely.

[wumpus]

23 hours ago, coyotesfrontier said:

Can anyone here estimate the probability that this turns out to be correct, and there actually is life on Venus?

Not from this evidence.  You'd need to know the likelyhood of life being randomly produced from organic molecules.

22 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

We know phosphine can be naturally produced in high temperatures, this happens on Jupiter, for instance. What got people so excited is that Venus is hot, but not that hot. Either there's some place in there where there's a 500K+ hotspot, or some other process is at work here. This could be geochemistry, but one thing life does is produce molecules that are typically difficult to make otherwise. 

This actually got me thinking. We know terrestrial life can make phosphine, and that there are species that could survive in the atmosphere of Venus. Were the Venera probes decontaminated? I'm not sure if Soviets had an equivalent to Planetary Protection Officer at the time, and even if they did, they knew Venus was a hellhole back then, and extremophiles were poorly researched at the time. I wonder, what are the chances that one of those hitched a ride in one of the parachute containers, or on a balloon probe, and, having found a perfect environment, spread far enough for its metabolites to show up? It's a rather disturbing thought. 

You'd have to intentionally select the exact extremephiles you wanted to contaminate Venus with and splash them all over the parachutes.  While plenty of the conditions that probe was built/transported/launched might be considered extreme, I'd expect any of the "right" microbe would simply be eaten by ordinary microbes evolved to Russian conditions.

This really calls for a "Wolftrap".  Put a glider in Venus' atmosphere and load it with various organic chemicals including phosphorus and see if any phosphine is produced.

[Guest]

Some interesting insights into the results, how they were obtained, and why it's such a big deal:
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/09/15/phosphine-life-and-venus

Of note, this is a radioastronomy result. This is why we didn't have this earlier. It could come from sulfuric acid, but that would require it to be far hotter than we think it is. Given that, measurement error seems unlikely, but this needs to be investigated. It won't be easy to verify this, though, since the best way would be to send another balloon probe. That said, we might be getting more radio and IR measurements, which will certainly help with that.

The problem with Venus is that it has not been subject to extensive investigation, and conditions up there make it difficult. On top of that, clouds we can work with, but to investigate the geological origin, we'd have to get down to the surface, with all problems that this implies. There's a lot of variables in play here, and we don't really have enough data to accurately model Venusian environment. Perhaps Venera data should be given a second look, too, these things had mass spectrometers onboard. 

18 minutes ago, wumpus said:

You'd have to intentionally select the exact extremephiles you wanted to contaminate Venus with and splash them all over the parachutes.  While plenty of the conditions that probe was built/transported/launched might be considered extreme, I'd expect any of the "right" microbe would simply be eaten by ordinary microbes evolved to Russian conditions.

Seems like it should be the case, and such microbes are pretty rare, by microbe standards, but they're also quite hardy. It wouldn't have to be "all over the parachutes", because any random piece of fabric houses a ridiculous number of microbes, more than enough to kick-start a colony, if the conditions are right. They're archea, mostly, so bacteria indeed have a serious advantage over them, but they can be found on common surfaces.

Edited September 15, 2020 by Guest

[Codraroll]

8 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

The executive director for promising programs and science of Roscosmos A. Bloshenko doesn't see evidences of the Venusian life existence and believes that only in-situ researches can bring them.
He also reminds that the USSR was the only country able to run such researches, and that Venera/Venus-13 was working for 127 minutes on surface.
Also he mentioned the objects on the surface, recently discovered by the Russian scientists on the Soviet Venusian photos and requiring further exploration to realize, how much right they were.
(The widely-known in their time stone-shaped ones, I remember them from the Young Technicist magazine in 1980s. It was written that they had changed their position on two photos)
Also he mentioned the Venera/Venus-D craft (made basically by the Russia herself with reduced international participation) going to research the Venusian surface, its atmosphere and ground, and the evolution of the planet, including its greenhouse climatic catastrophe in the past.

(...)

Rogozin called the Venus a "true hell" and a "Russian planet" and reminded that Russia is preparing a research program together with USA, but maybe will run and her own one.

Classic Roscosmos statement, in other words? "We did something quite awesome a few decades ago, and NASA didn't do them, which proves we were - and still are - the only ones ever capable of doing these things, now and in the future. Actually, we might decide to do a mission like that on our own any day now, we don't need help from NASA-"

"Uhh, the people who did these awesome things are long dead or retired now, and you haven't done a mission beyond Earth orbit since-"

"Shut up! Roscosmos glorious, NASA weak, SpaceX waste of money!"

"Speaking of that last part-" (sudden scream being cut off just as suddenly)

[Guest]

I thought about it more and that Phosphine gas was discovered on Venus made me realize that gas giants are also hot and have Phosphine. So here is what I bet:

40% - Life on Venus

55% - better understanding of Phosphine is discovered

5% - No funding is given and we won't know

[kerbiloid]

Quote

If everything goes well, the mission to Venus will start in 2029. Its cost from the Russian side alone is estimated at 16-17 billion rubles. The mission will include a floating probe and landing stations.

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=ru&sl=ru&tl=en&u=https://www.rbc.ru/technology_and_media/16/09/2020/5f6112009a794710c600186e

[Guest]

2 hours ago, The Doodling Astronaut said:

I thought about it more and that Phosphine gas was discovered on Venus made me realize that gas giants are also hot and have Phosphine.

This looks different, though. Phosphine forms very deep in gas giants, at temperatures and pressures much higher than found on Venus. At least, that's what we think. Venus is bad, but it's got nothing on the inside of a gas giant.