If you ask anyone whether life
exists on other planets and moons, The answer you’ll probably
get is a confident “yes!” Going back generations, we’ve been introduced
to a wide range of extraterrestrials, good, Bad and evil. Their presence makes up a
large part of our entertainment and culture, And us Earthlings seem to have an unfounded
belief that we are not alone in the universe. But that extraterrestrial presence on
regular display in movies or games is, Of course, a fiction. No alien life
beyond Earth has ever been found; There is no evidence that any non terrestrial life
has ever visited our planet. It’s all a theory. This does not mean, however, that the universe is
lifeless. While no clear signs of life have ever Been detected, the possibility of extraterrestrial
biology – the scientific logic that supports It – has grown. That is perhaps the biggest
achievement of the growing field of astrobiology. Later this decade, NASA will launch
its DAVINCI mission — short for Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases,
Chemistry, and Imaging — to collect never seen Before observations of our torrid sister planet.
As laid out in a new paper by mission researchers, The probe will help answer elusive
questions: Did Venus harbor oceans? Was it habitable? Did it ever host life?
What, exactly, is happening on its surface? On a Venusian day in 2031, at sharp noon, the
DAVINCI spacecraft will drop a three-foot-wide Titanium sphere through Venus' thick
clouds. It will ingest gases. It will Run experiments. It will endure extremes
of heat and pressure. It will show us what Venusian mountains actually look like. If
all goes as planned, just a single hour of Observations will transform our understanding of
Venus and finally reveal its past and secrets. *Intro* Before we begin, let’s be clear. DAVINCI
is not the first to set foot on Venus. The first spacecraft to set mechanical feet Venus
was actually in the 1960s and '70s, the former Soviet Union's Venera probes. They plunged through
the planet's punishing atmosphere, with a handful Even sending back data from its rocky surface. In
December 1970, for instance, the Venera 8 lander Transmitted atmospheric data for more than
50 minutes after its turbulent touchdown. These early missions provided an important
lesson: Venus is like a massive pressure cooker. Venus is the third brightest thing in the
sky, but our view of it is blocked by a Thick atmosphere, and despite the
strange and scorching conditions, Venus shares a surprising
number of features with Earth. Although the planet is the second closest planet
to the sun, it's by far the hottest of the eight Worlds in our solar system. Its thick atmosphere
is mostly made of carbon dioxide with clouds of Sulfuric acid, which traps the sun's heat
and creates a runaway greenhouse effect.
And now, researchers have made an unexpected
discovery that could be a potential game Changer in our search for extraterrestrial life.
All thanks to a phosphine gas discovery on Venus. Phosphine is considered to be a biosignature.
A biosignature is any substance – such as an Element, isotope, or molecule – or
phenomenon that provides scientific Evidence of past or present life.
Other elements that are biosignatures Are carbon dioxide or nitrous
oxide, also known as laughing gas. On Earth, phosphine is produced
by certain types of bacteria. This discovery was unexpected and a
potential game changer. The presence Of airborne phosphine is a little like spotting
a lighthouse during a torrid storm on the seas: A signal that life is in the neighborhood. But if, indeed, living organisms are
floating in the dense air of Venus, It would enormously strengthen the
argument that life isn't a cosmic miracle. For decades, scientists have pursued life in
space in three major ways. One is to simply Search for it which is the motivation
for sending many of the rovers that Crawl across the Martian surface. A second
is to try to tune in to alien radio signals. And a third is to use telescopes to examine the
atmospheres of planets and moons for biomarkers: Gasses produced by life. Which is also what
the James Webb Space Telescope is doing. What makes the discovery of phosphine in Venus'
air so compelling is that the researchers have Racked their brains trying to come up with ways
to explain its presence without bringing up the Term “life”. They've considered the likelihood of
weird chemical processes in the atmosphere that Could produce it or the possibility that it was
spewed out of volcanoes below. Even the reactions Caused by meteors that blaze through the clouds or
the chemical effects of lightning were considered. But the scientists couldn't find a
plausible non-biological explanation. Nonetheless, they remain cautious. History is
full with claims of extraterrestrial biology that Later proved suspect or just plain wrong or even
false, from the canals on Mars to the squiggly Microscopic features seen in a Martian meteorite.
Everyone who's claimed to have established the Existence of life elsewhere has been challenged
and proven wrong. Science urges us to believe That our world is the only place in the universe
where life is known to exist. To prove otherwise Is a huge goal, and the proof needs to be
indisputable. Like Keke Palmer in Nope. The brother-sister duo basically risk their lives
to get a clear photographic proof of the alien. But Venusian life, could it even
exist under such hellish conditions? For decades scientists assumed Venus
was a sterile hell and largely ignored It in favor of Mars or several of the
water-rich moons of Jupiter and Saturn. But not all scientists. Planetary astronomer David
Grinspoon, of the Planetary Science Institute,
Has persistently championed the idea
of paying greater attention to Venus. He pointed out that at 30 miles above the surface, The cloud temperatures drop to roughly
the same as on a fall day in New York. The idea that some microbes could be floating
in these extraordinarily dense and temperate Clouds isn't so outrageous then. Such organisms
could be the leftovers from simple life that may Have been spawned during the billions of years
that Venus had oceans, vast seas that eventually Boiled away. Or they would be the microscopic
survivors from a world that slowly burned. But we can't yet rule out the more
dramatic outcome — the possibility that, At long last, we've proven that we
have company in the cosmos. Yes, They're microscopic and live an
incomprehensibly dull existence. But unlike everything else we've yet
found in the heavens, they're alive. Many simulations of Venus' evolution predicted
it had an ocean for some 2 or 3 billion years. That's a lot of time for potential life to evolve. Out in the deeper cosmos, other exo-Venuses
might harbor similar environments. Through all the chaos, one message
remains clear. We have to know our Venus.
