In the toxic atmosphere of Earth’s neighbor or twin planet Venus, some traces have been discovered that point to some kind of life.
If the discovery is confirmed by telescope observations and future space missions, scientists will turn their attention to Venus.
Due to its proximity to the sun, the temperature on this planet is very high and due to other toxic effects, scientists have not done much to find life there.
But now European scientists have discovered a chemical phosphoen there in a toxic environment, and after analysis, they insisted that the only explanation for the chemical’s presence there is some kind of life.
This chemical, called phosphofen, is produced industrially on the ground or when there are germs that grow in an oxygen-free environment.
“It was a shocking moment when we first found hints of this chemical in Venus’s atmosphere,” said Jane Graves, a researcher at Cardiff University in the UK.
To confirm this discovery, they used sensitive telescopes from Chile and the European Southern Observatory (ESO) that could observe Venus’ wavelength.
A team of researchers from Britain, Japan and the United States estimated that the chemical was present in very small amounts in Venus clouds or in a small space.
As well as advancing his observations, he also estimated whether this orbit of chemicals is the result of the planet’s natural non-biological processes, such as sunlight, minerals rising above the surface, volcanoes or lightning, But no one has been able to prove it.
According to the research team, the amount of this chemical observed in Venus, the ground microbes will need 10% of their full potential to make them.
Bacteria on Earth remove phosphate from these chemical minerals or biological materials with the addition of hydrogen.
The germs in Venus will certainly be different from the Earth, but they may be the source of this chemical.
Researchers believe that their discovery is important because most possibilities for alternative sources of phosphofen have not been proven, but they also acknowledge that much work will be needed to confirm the existence of life.
Similarly, although the temperature in the clouds of Venus is 30 degrees Celsius, the acidic environment like sulfuric acid up to 90% is a big challenge for the growth of any kind of microbes.
Now more work will be done to find out how this chemical became part of the planet’s environment and whether it is really the result of some kind of life.
The results of the study were published in the journal Nature Astronomy.