> From what we're told the researchers have concluded that abiotic mechanisms (i.e. ones that do not involve life) that might produce phosphine cannot account for the large amount that they have detected. The phosphine has been detected in the region within the atmosphere of Venus that is considered by some to be potentially habitable. As to what spin the researchers put on this, we'll have to wait for reporters who have the press release or are allowed to participate in the Zoom press conference thing tomorrow at 15:00 GMT to let us know.
[1] http://astrobiology.com/2020/09/phosphine-detected-in-the-at...
Can you point me to a resource that describes phosphine occurring in nature from an abiotic process?
The Wikipedia article on Phosphine[1] describes an acid-based route to create Phosphine industrially, but notes that:
> The acid route requires purification and pressurizing.
While Venus would seemingly have the needed atmospheric pressure, what about the conditions for purification?
> The most likely source is reduction of phosphate in decaying organic matter, possibly via partial reductions and disproportionations, since environmental systems do not have known reducing agents of sufficient strength to directly convert phosphate to phosphine
You can make phosphine from entirely abiotic common elements and salts literally hundreds of ways. It's almost exactly like saying how many abiotic syntheses of water (OH2) are there (all combustions for starters...)
I have a PhD in chemistry from Berkeley and collaborated with nasa astrochemists. I'm not just reading wikipedia FYI ;P
The team that worked on this said they were thorough in going through the possible abiotic pathways that could cause this on a rocky planet like Venus. Now of course it's possible they missed something, like parent says: "There's about eleven bajillion abiotic routes to phosphine". I guess it was a sarcastic remark, but maybe parent really could have saved everyone a ton of time and $$. They're publishing as a starting point for the rest of the world to dig into this now, hopefully someone nails down what's happening one way or the other without waiting on a probe to be sent there!
It's a casual dismissal only because it's a comment on HN, rather than e.g. a review comment in a peer-reviewd journal. Otherwise, that's exactly the kind of reaction one learns to expect when one is doing research. Your work will be criticised. Ruthlessly.
It's not even a bad thing, long-term, quite the contrary. Only work that has survived the criticism of experts in a field can be expected to make a real impact.
And this is really just me being philosophical about it because of course criticism stings and rejection hurts. But you learn to live with it and I think most researchers who have taken a baptism of fire (submitted to a journal- or conference in CS) eventually come to terms with it: people will rubbish your work constantly. Until they are convinced it's good work.
From what I've read, the amount of phosphine plays a role, i.e. if there's lots of it it's a stronger sign of life. However, that's what I've read in the lay press that reports on the opinions of experts. Now, the thing about the opinions of experts is that there are always other experts that hold a completely different opinion and when you read an interview with one expert they very strongly support their own opinion, but don't really do justice to the opinions of others- because that's not their job. So it's often hard to know which expert's opinion is closest to the truth by reading what one team of experts tell the lay press. Science is a debate, after all- but not a debate carried out in news sites and internet forums (or at least not primarily there, I understand theoretical phycisists like their internet flame wars).
So, personally, before accepting anything as evidence of this and that, I'll just wait patiently until the dust has settled and the experts have agreed to disagree.
I wish more people did that when it came to my own area of expertise, btw. What I say above is what I've observed on reportage of my own field in the lay press.
I do have to note though that one of the researchers behind the announcement sounds very much like an expert on Phosphine, in particular. This is from the leaked article:
Clara Sousa-Silva at MIT, whose career specialty is studying phosphine, said in a statement:
It’s very hard to prove a negative. Now, astronomers will think of all the ways to justify phosphine without life, and I welcome that. Please do, because we are at the end of our possibilities to show abiotic processes that can make phosphine.
Finding phosphine on Venus was an unexpected bonus! The discovery raises many questions, such as how any organisms could survive. On Earth, some microbes can cope with up to about 5% of acid in their environment, but the clouds of Venus are almost entirely made of acid.
Sounds to me like there's going to be some er, lively debate around this. Or not, I'm not an expert in any of this, lucky me :)
People need to think less about people's university credentials when they assess credibility. Especially at places like MIT which burn through them like kindling.
Clara is a postdoc@MIT, and an expert in the _spectral lines_ of phosphine. The paper she refers to about known abiotic routes is really cursory and by no means exhaustively searches for routes to phosphine (https://sci-hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018....). It considers a handful of reactions for a compound which has millions of chemical equilibria. The most obvious omission is hydrogen sulfide which is all over venus.
Honestly, I have no ability to judge this way or that in this thing. It's completely outside my expertise. Also, I have no idea of how common it is for people to make unsubstantiated claims in astronomy (or is it astrobiology in this case?). In my field, AI, it's common for people to use big words and say big things they can't really back up with anything concrete. I hope that's not the way it is in astronomy. I'm a little concerned by your turn of phrase "the pathological nature of the science community today". If this announcement turns out to be a dud it might make some damage, I guess.