New compelling evidence of life on Venus

[Cameroi]

not exactly compelling, but it IS the most interesting thing we've heard about the place in a long time.

[La Paz de Los Ricos]

Welcome to our Microbial over Lords!

And what are they gonna do, multiply on me?

[The Blaatschapen]

Sailors fighting in the dance hall
Oh man! Look at those cavemen go
It's the freakiest show
Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show
Is there life on Venus?

[Atheris]

Sailors fighting in the dance hall
Oh man! Look at those cavemen go
It's the freakiest show
Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show
Is there life on Venus?

Well, men are from Mars, women are from Venus...

[Kowani]

Welcome to our Microbial over Lords!

And what are they gonna do, multiply on me?

Nice lungs you have there. Be a shame if someone were to...infect them.

[Atheris]

And what are they gonna do, multiply on me?

Nice lungs you have there. Be a shame if someone were to...infect them.

SPACE COVID! Space COVID! space COVID, space covid...

[Kowani]

Nice lungs you have there. Be a shame if someone were to...infect them.

SPACE COVID! Space COVID! space COVID, space covid...

I see you peeked at the script for 2021.

[Diarcesia]

SPACE COVID! Space COVID! space COVID, space covid...

I see you peeked at the script for 2021.

Don't worry. I heard Venus is less toxic than NSG.

[US-SSR]

I'll reserve judgment until we can exclude nonorganic phosphene production under extreme conditions we understand only in part, thank you all the same.

[Atheris]

I see you peeked at the script for 2021.

Don't worry. I heard Venus is less toxic than NSG.

That's fucking great. You, my friend, get framed on the Awesome Quotes Thread.

[Free Ravensburg]

[Kowani]

I'll reserve judgment until we can exclude nonorganic phosphene production under extreme conditions we understand only in part, thank you all the same.

From the NatGeo article: 'The study team set out to determine whether phosphine could be made on Venus in the absence of biology. Among the scenarios the scientists investigated were volcanic outgassing, intense lightning strikes, tectonic plates rubbing together, bismuth rain, and cosmic dust. Based on the team’s calculations, none of those events could produce the molecule in such abundance."

[Brinckerhoff]

STOP TELLING ME THERE'S NO VENEREAL BACTERIA
I have felt it myself!

Evidence of unknown chemistry isn't necesarily evidence of life - a lot of planetary astronomers and biogeochemistry people I've seen on twitter hesitate to draw too strong of conclusions from this because phosphine is so comparatively simple. If we found signatures of long-chain hydrocarbons or other complex molecules that would be better evidence since they would require some similarly complex process (relatively speaking) to generate them continuously.

[La Paz de Los Ricos]

Nice lungs you have there. Be a shame if someone were to...infect them.

SPACE COVID! Space COVID! space COVID, space covid...

Where the hell is the FFFFFFFT god-mod eight-dimensional space empire this site told me would keep Earth safe at all times?

[Aureumterra]

I see you peeked at the script for 2021.

Don't worry. I heard Venus is less toxic than NSG.

Not a very high bar

[US-SSR]

I'll reserve judgment until we can exclude nonorganic phosphene production under extreme conditions we understand only in part, thank you all the same.

From the NatGeo article: 'The study team set out to determine whether phosphine could be made on Venus in the absence of biology. Among the scenarios the scientists investigated were volcanic outgassing, intense lightning strikes, tectonic plates rubbing together, bismuth rain, and cosmic dust. Based on the team’s calculations, none of those events could produce the molecule in such abundance."

Holla back when their results are reproducible. Because science. Or iow this:

Evidence of unknown chemistry isn't necesarily evidence of life - a lot of planetary astronomers and biogeochemistry people I've seen on twitter hesitate to draw too strong of conclusions from this because phosphine is so comparatively simple. If we found signatures of long-chain hydrocarbons or other complex molecules that would be better evidence since they would require some similarly complex process (relatively speaking) to generate them continuously.

[Valrifell]

From the NatGeo article: 'The study team set out to determine whether phosphine could be made on Venus in the absence of biology. Among the scenarios the scientists investigated were volcanic outgassing, intense lightning strikes, tectonic plates rubbing together, bismuth rain, and cosmic dust. Based on the team’s calculations, none of those events could produce the molecule in such abundance."

Holla back when their results are reproducible. Because science.

Not to be pedantic (but I'm going to be pedantic), but what the scientists did doesn't yield "results" in the sense that an observation isn't an experiment with predicable results. What we want is their observations to be repeatable with different instruments, or even the same instrument at a different time.

[Neanderthaland]

Holla back when their results are reproducible. Because science.

Not to be pedantic (but I'm going to be pedantic), but what the scientists did doesn't yield "results" in the sense that an observation isn't an experiment with predicable results. What we want is their observations to be repeatable with different instruments, or even the same instrument at a different time.

And to the extent that the result is measurable, it already has been reproduced. When the observatory in Hawaii that detected the phosphine noticed their results, the first then they did was ask other observatories to confirm their finding. Which they did.

[Valrifell]

Not to be pedantic (but I'm going to be pedantic), but what the scientists did doesn't yield "results" in the sense that an observation isn't an experiment with predicable results. What we want is their observations to be repeatable with different instruments, or even the same instrument at a different time.

And to the extent that the result is measurable, it already has been reproduced. When the observatory in Hawaii that detected the phosphine noticed their results, the first then they did was ask other observatories to confirm their finding. Which they did.

Of course, what good scientists.

[Northwest Slobovia]

I'll reserve judgment until we can exclude nonorganic phosphene production under extreme conditions we understand only in part, thank you all the same.

From the NatGeo article: 'The study team set out to determine whether phosphine could be made on Venus in the absence of biology. Among the scenarios the scientists investigated were volcanic outgassing, intense lightning strikes, tectonic plates rubbing together, bismuth rain, and cosmic dust. Based on the team’s calculations, none of those events could produce the molecule in such abundance."

OK, none of those events could produce phosphine. That doesn't mean the only remaining choice is biology, it means that they've ruled out those possibilities. (Assuming they haven't screwed up their analyses, of course.)

I'm not sure of the specific fallacy people saying "...and therefore life!" are committing, but it's somesort of inductive fallacy or appeal to ignorance. "It's not A, it's not B, it's not C, and so it must be Z!", excluding other choices, including unknown/undiscovered possibilities, is bogus reasoning.

[Ethel mermania]

Aliens.

[Diarcesia]

My gut feeling says that they're microbes. I'll be more let down that they're not really extraterrestrial but brought in by our probes.

[TURTLESHROOM II]

The miracles of God's Creation unfold before us. We should invest in an investigation of this and an expedition into the Venetian atmosphere. If this is true, and they have found microbes on Venus, it will be the discovery of the ages. This is thrilling to me, and I hope it captures the wonder of others on here.

Venus was an odd candidate, but there are airborne microbes on the earth, and storms do produce enough power to hold things aloft for a long time (this is how hailstones form). As Venus is permanently clouded and has a thick atmosphere, it could be possible for some sort of creature to permanently float in the air.

The allegation that phosphine has spawned on Venus is not something that can easily be tracked with our current space infrastructure. To my knowledge, there are no permanent satellites around Venus, or any major access points to the earth's Evil Twin. Obviously, as the Cold War taught us, any probe that lands on Venus dies. In order to prove that phosphine is present, we would have to actually sample Venus' atmosphere.

Still, if phosphine is an indicator of life, then this opens Venus up to the possibility of life on the planet. That is astounding in its own right.

[TURTLESHROOM II]

Aliens.

My gut feeling says that they're microbes. I'll be more let down that they're not really extraterrestrial but brought in by our probes.

Dude, that would be stunning in and of itself! A probe hasn't landed on Venus in forty years. We would have seeded a celestial body!

[Kiu Ghesik]

My gut feeling says that they're microbes. I'll be more let down that they're not really extraterrestrial but brought in by our probes.

This. Do you think the Soviets could be bothered to sterilize the goddamn shotgun blast of probes they launched at Venus? I think not. Bet $20 it's just a bunch of Venera hitchhiker microbes.