Astrobiology
Phosphine and Venus
Phosphine and Venus: the references
These are the papers on phosphine and Venus so far. The first two are the new papers from 2020 on discovering phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus. The others are the backgroudn work we have done on why detecting phosphine is a sign of life, and where it comes from on Earth.
We are not the only ones working on phosphine, of course. Please read the papers below for references to the many workers who over several decades have laid the groundwork for this.
Click the 
image to link to the paper
| Greaves et al (2020) |
The paper in Nature Astronomy that announced the discovery of phosphine on Venus. A lot of technical detail into how it was done and how we determined that it was phosphine and not something else |
| Bains et al (2020) |
The paper currently submitted to Astrobiology about how we ruled out all known non-biological sources of phosphine on Venus, and a little bit on why a biolgoical source is not completely impossible [arXiv of submitetd manuscript) |
| Sousa-Silva et al (2020) |
A detailed analysis of why phosphine is a good 'biosignature gas' - a gas that suggests that life is present. Focuses on exoplanets (planets orbiting stars other than our Sun), but also good for why ti is a useful signature on Venus |
| Seager et al (2020) |
Our model of how life in the clouds of Venus can avoid getting 'raisned out' onto the surface as cloud drops grow and fall. |
| Bains et al (2019) |
An analysis of why bacteria on Earth might produce phosphine. Alas, this does not translate very well to Venus - the Terrestrail environments are nothing like the clouds of Venus. |
| Bains et al (2019) |
A more general analysis of why life on Earth uses phosphine and phosphine-like molecules so rarely, and why such molecules might be used more commonly on worlds that lack free oxygen in their atmospheres (such as Venus). |
| Seager et al (2016) |
The 'All Small Molecules' paper thats tarted us off thinking about exotic molecules as potential biosignatures. See the All Small Molecules page for more on this |