The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #168557   Message #4071986
Posted By: Raedwulf
15-Sep-20 - 04:13 PM
Thread Name: BS: Life in Venus' Atmosphere
Subject: RE: BS: Life in Venus' Atmosphere
Phosphine (it's an I, Don; it's not phosgene! ;-) ) is PH3, Mrrzy. Three Hydrogen, not Oxygen. It's an interesting finding, but I'll wait for more info before jumping to any conclusions.

Although I will point out that there's all sorts of weird & wonderful life down in the deep oceans around thermal vents - hot, high pressure environment; very chemical, no sunlight. So it's life, Jim, but not life like us! NB: the phosphine has been detected high in the atmosphere, where conditions are much more Earth-normal; I'm just pointing out we've got some serious weirdies down here, so...

It'll take a dedicated, specially designed mission to potentially find anything, so beyond what we can find out from distant observation of the atmosphere, it'll be a decade at least before we potentially find anything substantial.