Washington-SANA
A team of scientists revealed that a gas called phosphine was found in the clouds of Venus that are highly acidic, indicating the possibility of microbes and life on the planet near Earth.
"What we currently know about Venus, the most plausible explanation for phosphine, although it may seem fanciful, is life," Reuters quoted astronomer Jane Graves of Cardiff University in Wales, who led the research team published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
The existence of extraterrestrial life is one of the main scientific issues for a long time, and scientists have used probes and telescopes to search for vital signs, which are non-direct signs of life on other planets and moons in our solar system and beyond.
On her part, Clara Souza Silva, a molecular astrophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a participant in the research, said: “I must stress that life as an explanation for our discovery should, as always, be the last resort .. This is important because if this gas is phosphine and if this is proven Life, this means that we are not alone, and this also means that life itself must be very common and there must be many other inhabited planets throughout our galaxy.
The researchers did not discover actual life forms, but did note that phosphine on Earth is produced by bacteria that circulate in oxygen-hungry environments.
And phosphine, a phosphorous atom combined with three hydrogen atoms, is very toxic to humans.