Science
The search for life – from Venus to the outer solar system – The Guardian
While the discovery of the normally microbe-produced phosphine on our toxic neighbour is astonishing, other candidates for life are more promising
It remains one of the most unexpected scientific discoveries of the year. To their astonishment, British scientists last week revealed they had uncovered strong evidence that phosphine a toxic, rancid gas produced by microbes exists in the burning, acid-drenched atmosphere of Venus.
By rights, it should simply not be there. All the geological and photochemical routes we can think of are far too underproductive to make the phosphine we have seen, said Cardiff University astronomer Professor Jane…
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