New Scientist: Venus' Atmosphere Implies Life

WolfWithoutAClause writes "This New Scientist article says that the atmosphere of Venus has features that may only be explaineable by the existence of life in its upper atmosphere. In particular it has cartain chemicals which are extremely difficult to make inorganically. At the altitude where life is suspected the temperature is about 70C and about 1 atmosphere. There are gases there which are not naturally found together. The article suggests something is actively producing them, quite possibly, life."

Comments

Life in the Atmosphere of Venus

[herwin]

New Scientist is not a peer-reviewed journal and often publishes speculative articles. This report is interesting, but I'd like to see the scientific article. There are alternative explanations, I'm sure, and I'm interested in seeing whether they've been adequately ruled out. In any case, how would you test this theory?

Re:Life in the Atmosphere of Venus

[Hittite Creosote]

The article should appear in an ESA special publication (ESA SP-518). If the author submits it, it might appear in the new peer-reviewed journal International Journal of Astrobiology

To test the theory, obviously you'd need a sample of the atmosphere. Although New Scientist mentions ESA's Venus Express mission, it doesn't say whether the mission would have the necessary equipment to check for life.

Re:Developing ideas

[david.given]

But the heat just gives us even more reasons to not (at least not as a first step) land first and try to launch back up. It's much easier to propel the canister(s) from a decent altitude than if you wait until you're in deep. Gravity, pressure and heat all combine to make it unnecessary difficult (and expensive, since all propellants and other resources has to be brought along for the ride) to do launches from the surface.

Damn straight. Venus has the same gravity as Earth, remember? Which means that getting stuff out of its gravity well is an incredible hassle. If you need an Ariane or a Proton to get an object off Earth, you're going to need another Ariane or Proton to get it off Venus again once you've landed it there. And the super-dense atmosphere is going to cause even more problems.

No, launching from Venus is a problem that can happily wait until nuclear rockets or antigravity are feasible.

Besides, if there is life on Venus, I'd much rather study it in situ than bring some back here. While it almost certainly wouldn't survive in an Earth environment, that 'almost' worries me a bit...