A stroke of Venus
image from NASA
So, I like space. A lot. I regularly use an app that tells me where things are in the sky. It gives me notifications when there’s an astronomical event happening. I can pretty accurately identify planets in the sky based on season and time. I have a homemade star chart of the Northern Hemisphere and I have a constellation tattoo (and, it is not my astrology sign).
Anyway, I wanted to share the coolest news I heard all week!
On Monday, researchers from MIT announced that phosphine was found in the clouds of Venus! Phosphine is kind of a mysterious little gas. We don’t totally know how it’s produced yet, but it is considered a biosignature gas. It is typically found in areas where there is degradation of biological matter – AKA something decomposing. Other places it can be found are where there is human industrial activity and near communities of some single-celled organisms. We also manufacture it and use it as rat poison.
Because we don’t totally know how it’s produced naturally, this could be pretty boring news. It could just be from a chemical reaction we don’t know about yet. It’s uncertain, which is part of the excitement! We know where phosphine is found on Earth, and have a slight idea on how it gets there. So finding this gas on Venus is pretty cool! Researchers have also found phosphine in the clouds of Jupiter and Saturn and have been studying them, but it’s not considered a sign of potential life there. It’s possible that it’s formed by high pressures and temperatures.
However!
Venus has something that Saturn and Jupiter don’t. Venus is in the ‘Goldilocks Zone’ of our solar system. The Goldilocks zone is an area around a star that’s most likely able to support life, far enough away to not burn and close enough to not freeze – ‘not too hot, not too cold. It’s just right.’ So even prior to Monday, Venus was already noted to be potentially life-supporting! Now we add on a biosignature gas, and that’s enough to get the science community pretty intrigued. (I know I am!)
-Jess