Venus has always seemed to be the last place you expect to find life. With surface temperatures that are hot enough to melt the atmospheric lead pressure and crush, our neighboring planet seems completely hostile. But in its clouds, where the conditions are surprisingly similar to the earth, scientists have discovered something extraordinary: mysterious gases which should not exist, unless something is living up there … Perhaps!
Over the past five years, researchers have detected phosphine and ammonia in the atmosphere of Venus, two gases on earth are produced almost exclusively by biological processes or industrial activity. Since Venus has no factories, the discovery triggered one of the most intriguing questions in astrobiology: could microbial life float in the clouds of the planet?
Now, a mission supported by the United Kingdom plans to answer this question once and for all. Jane Greaves, astronomy professor at the University of Cardiff, and his team revealed Verve (who came to explore for reduced vapors in the environment), an ambitious survey that would reach a tour of Venus with the mission of the European Space Agency, scheduled for 2031.
Discovery debate of phosphine sparks
The story began in 2020, when Greaves and his colleagues detected phosphine for the first time in Venus clouds using the James Clerk Maxwell telescope in Hawaii. The announcement sent shock waves via the scientific community. On earth, phosphine is mainly produced by anaerobic bacteria, microbes that thrive in oxygen -free environments such as swamps and in the intestines of animals. Finding him on Venus suggested the enticing possibility of aerial life.
However, the discovery proved controversial. Follow -up observations by other teams have failed to reproduce the results, leading to heated scientific debates. But the Greaves team has not abandoned. Thanks to persistent surveillance, they discovered something crucial: the phosphine signal seemed to follow the cycle of the day of Venus, destroyed by sunlight and varying with time and location through the planet.
The plot was thickened when the team announced the provisional detection of ammonia in the clouds of Venus. Like phosphine, ammonia on earth is mainly produced by biological activity and industrial processes. But there are no known atmospheric or geological phenomena which can explain its presence on Venus.
Verve Mission targets the clouds of Venus
The proposed verve mission would cost 43 million sterling pounds (nearly $ 58 million), a fraction of typical planetary missions, and would seek and map these gases as well as other compounds rich in hydrogen which should not exist on Venus. The cubeat size probe would detach from imagining on arrival and would carry out an independent investigation while the main mission studies the surface and the interior of Venus.
The target area for the potential lifespan is around 50 kilometers above the Venus surface, where temperatures range from 30 ° C comfortable to 70 ° C and atmospheric pressure resembles the surface conditions of the earth. In this “Goldilocks zone” of the atmosphere, the extreme microbes (organisms that thrive in difficult conditions) could theoretically survive.
These organizations could be more temperate past remains of Venus. Billions of years ago, he could have had liquid water oceans and earth -type conditions. As the planet’s fleeting greenhouse effect was settling in, any life that existed could have withdrawn on the most hospital layers of clouds, evolving to survive in this air niche.
The only way to solve the mystery once and for all is a direct investigation and, in the event of success, the mission could mark one of the most important discoveries in human history: proof that life exists beyond the earth.
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