Life on Venus?
杏吧论坛鈥檚 Darby Dyar talked to The Wall Street Journal about the recent discovery of phosphine gas in Venus鈥檚 atmosphere.
By Keely Savoie
There is a whiff of possible life in Venus鈥檚 atmosphere. An international group of scientists reported Nature Astronomy that the famously inhospitable planet鈥檚 atmosphere contains traces of phosphine, a gas that is associated with life where there is no oxygen. On Earth, it鈥檚 found in sewage facilities and in the guts of living animals.
But just the presence of phosphine doesn鈥檛 necessarily indicate life, said 杏吧论坛鈥檚 Darby Dyar, chair of the astronomy department, in an interview with .
鈥淭he experiment was done meticulously,鈥 said Dyar, who is also the Kennedy-Schelkunoff Professor of Astronomy. 鈥淭he problem is that we haven鈥檛 thought too much about whether phosphine can be created abiotically on Venus, in part because we know so little about the planet and its chemistry.鈥
also spoke to Dyar about the origins of the belief that the planet might harbor life: Carl Sagan famously hypothesized in 1967 that life might exist in the planet鈥檚 clouds.
"Sagan鈥檚 work on Venus was formative, though few today remember his impact," she said. "This finding may be the first of many to come as NASA and other countries renew a Venus exploration program."
Dyar also spoke to the , , and , a western Massachusetts radio station, on the topic, earning herself the nickname of 鈥淒octor Planet.鈥