Hacker News Reader

Comment by hutzlibu | Hacker News Reader

"What did the researchers find?

Simply put, a gas that shouldn’t be there, and on Earth is considered a conclusive biosignature: phosphine, a very stinky gas. As far as scientists know, there are only two ways to produce it, either artificially in a lab, or by certain kinds of microbes that live in oxygen-free environments. Since it is rather unlikely there any alien labs on Venus, that leaves microbes."

Or it reveals, that we still don't really know what is going on on venus, which chaotic atmosphere and vulcanic activity might very well result in the specific "lab conditions" to create phosphine.

So, it is a very interesting find, worth investigating, but I just for the existence of a gas, I would not shout "proof of alien life", yet.

View on HN

Interesting.

> As far as scientists know, there are only two ways to produce it, either artificially in a lab, or by certain kinds of microbes that live in oxygen-free environments.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphine

Philippe Gengembre (1764–1838), a student of Lavoisier, first obtained phosphine in 1783 by heating phosphorus in an aqueous solution of potash (potassium carbonate).[4][5]

So you can obtain it without microbes?

Yes, the article was clear on that. There are methods to produce it "naturally" or in a lab, but no explanation fits the amount of gas they have detected. So either they do not understand conditions on Venus, there is a new method to produce it or there is a microbe producing it.

And how do you propose to obtain elemental phosphorus in the atmosphere of Venus? As a side note, phosphorus is actually named after Venus the morning star, light bearer, etc because it is highly reactive and glows slightly in the presence of oxygen.

> And how do you propose to obtain elemental phosphorus in the atmosphere of Venus?

The second preparation method in Wikipedia looks more plausible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphine#Laboratory_routes

> 4 H3PO3 → PH3 + 3 H3PO4

> Phosphine evolution occurs around 200 °C (400°F).

But I only have a Chemistry specialization in my secondary school and I am not an astrogeologer.

Is it possible a previous space probe seeded the atmosphere though? For example, did the Soviets sterilize all the Venera probes perfectly?

>>Is it possible a previous space probe seeded the atmosphere though?

Even if this were the case, it would still be quite amazing.

Hell yeah, a microbe released on Venus atmosphere decades ago and has not only survived, but produces already a measurable atmospheric effect?

That would be a amazing sensation. Terraforming would then be much, much easier, than expected. But I doubt it.

An Earth microbe evolving to be suddenly Venus-adjusted would possibly be more stunning than just "life evolved on Venus".

I disagree, close in proximity to 'stunning', however, finding true unique life that originated on a planet by itself organically goes a long way towards proving/disproving the fermi paradox.

I think it was maybe Carl Sagan who said (something like): if we find life in our solar system it's probably game over for us, as it means the great filter is likely ahead of us, not behind us.

Though, you can take one look at the world right now, and not see how easy it would be to just destroy it if we aren't careful (and we're not being careful).

I agree with Nick Lane: the great filter is likely to be the Eukaryotic event.

Yep, I agree with him that we're likely to find bacterial type life all over the place where there's water. At least if we can travel to places. But 'complex life' is going to be beyond scarce.

Though it's quite possible that if there is something on Venus or Mars it's Earth-origined, since conditions here 4 billion years ago look better for abiogenesis.

There’s nothing stopping there from being several great filters.

There is the power law heuristic, that 90% of results are often due to 10% of phenomena.

If there are several filters, then they may differ in effectiveness by many multiples, and then it's semantics as to whether you say any beyond the largest are "great".

Either that or the Reapers I guess ;)

Thanks for posting this- I've not heard of Nick Lane but this thought is exactly what I've considered the likely state of affairs.

Well, if there is no environmental regime that overlaps, then it doesn't evolve. But if there is, why wouldn't it?

Not for me. Finding life from elsewhere than Earth would be by far the most significant scientific discovery in human history. (Again, just a personal opinion; I have no objective argument to back it up).

Just finding life on venus does not mean, it evolved independent from the life on earth. Microbes travelling with asteroids is possible.

Just FYI - no probes have ever been 100% sterilized, because it's simply impossible without destroying them. Even the most sterilized probes and rovers that we've sent to other planets will have contained at least some bacteria.

If that happened, I think we'd be able to determine that by sampling and analyzing the microbes.

I think a more interesting concept would be exchange of microbes between Venus and Earth at some point in their distant past, and then could we might be able to date that (those) event (s) via their molecular clocks (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_clock)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com