Cambridge, UK
Sept 2020. Phosphine on venus. A hint of life on another world?
See story on the right, and more in the Astrobiology section above.
Dec. 2018. The science of a bad, smelly gas, and why it is good for life.
I am a scientist, entrepreneur and teacher in the life sciences. Browse or search here for explanation of what it is I do, why I do it, and what links such disparate subjects as the search for extrasolar planets, the chemistry of kidneys, and the economics of venture capital investment. |
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December 2020. Phosphine on Venus! (the saga continues) On September 14th Nature Astronomy published a paper by Prof. Jane Greaves and her collaborators, including me, on the discovery of phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus. See Here for the Greaves et al discovery paper. This generated a huge amount of press attention. Most of the media were careful to say that a) we had probably detected phosphione and b) it just might be a sign of life. A few went overboard and said that we had found evidence for life on Venus. Alas, a few of our colleagues went overboard and said we had found nothing and were idiots, and we spent most of the days between 15th September through (as of typing this) 5th December trying to understand their objections |
The issue is that Venus has an atmosphere almost devoid of water and rich in molecules containing oxygen atoms. So it should not make phosphine. Life on Venus seems realyl unlikely too - it is spectacularly dry, hot, acid. So what explains the result? This manuscript is the draft of the paper where we go into detail about how we ruled out a wide range of chemical processes as a source of phosphine on the planet. This page shows our video presentation of the analysis. This is science in action. |