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It's hard to imagine a world that's as inhospitable as ours. Venus is a wasteland where life could not survive because of its thick atmosphere and hot surface. The clouds on the planet are so hostile that they burn a hole through human skin.
A new study supports the idea that if life exists, it might live in Venus' clouds. The authors of the study have found a chemical pathway by which life could create a pocket in the clouds.
Scientists have long observed puzzling anomalies within Venus' atmosphere, such as small concentrations of oxygen and nonspherical particles unlike sulfuric acid's round droplets. The presence of ammonia, a gas that was detected in the 1970s, is puzzling and should not be produced through any chemical process on Venus.
If ammonia is present in the air, it would cause a cascade of chemical reactions that would oxidize surrounding droplets of sulfuric acid and explain most of the anomalies observed in Venus' clouds. The authors propose that the most plausible explanation for ammonia is biological, rather than a nonbiological source such as lightning or volcanic eruptions.
The chemistry suggests that life could be making its own environment on Venus.
The hypothesis can be tested, and the researchers give a list of chemical signatures for future missions to measure in Venus' clouds.
Sara Seager, the Class of 1941 Professor of Planetary Sciences in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), says that no life that we know of could survive in the Venus droplets. The point is, maybe some life is there, and is modifying its environment so that it is still alive.
The study's co-authors are Paul Rimmer, William Bains, and Janusz Petkowski.
Life suspect.
Last year, scientists including Seager reported the detection of phosphine in the planet's clouds. Phosphine is a gas that is produced on Earth. There is room for the possibility of life after the discovery of phosphine on Venus. The discovery has been disputed.
Seager says the phosphine detection became controversial. There's been a resurgence in people studying Venus, because phosphine was a gateway.
Rimmer was inspired to look more closely at the data from past missions. He found anomalies in the clouds that had gone unexplained for decades. There were anomalies with the presence of oxygen and nonspherical particles.
The anomalies might be explained by dust. He argued that minerals from Venus' surface and into the clouds could interact with sulfuric acid to produce anomalies. The chemistry was checked out, but the physical requirements were not feasible because of the amount of dust that would have to be lofted into the clouds.
Seager wondered if the anomalies could be explained by ammonia. The gas was detected in the planet's clouds by probes in the 70s. The presence of NH3 was an unsolved mystery.
"Ammonia shouldn't be on Venus," Seager says. There's very little hydrogen around it. Any gas that doesn't belong in the environment is suspicious.
The clouds are pleasant.
If the team assumed that life was the source of ammonia, could it explain the other anomalies in Venus' clouds? The researchers modeled several chemical processes to find an answer.
They found that if life were producing ammonia in the most efficient way possible, the chemical reactions would produce oxygen. The droplets of sulfuric acid would be relatively habitable if ammonia dissolved in them. The droplets would become more of a nonspherical, salt-like liquid after the introduction of ammonia. The surrounding sulfur dioxide would be dissolved once ammonia was dissolved in sulfuric acid.
Most of the anomalies seen in Venus' clouds could be explained by the presence of ammonia. The amount of ammonia required to explain the anomalies could not be produced by sources such as lightning, volcanic eruptions, and a meteorite strike. Life might.
There are life-forms on Earth that produce ammonia in our own stomachs to make a highly acidic environment.
Seager says that there are acidic environments on Earth where life does live, but it's not like the environment on Venus.
Seager is the principal investigator of the Venus Life Finder Missions, a set of proposed privately funded missions that will send a craft to Venus to measure the ammonia in its clouds.
Seager says thatVenus has unexplained atmospheric anomalies. It leaves room for the possibility of life.
The production of ammonia makes Venusian clouds habitable and explains observed cloud-level chemical anomalies. There is a book titled "2110889118."
The National Academy of Sciences has a journal.
Acid-neutralizing life-forms could make Venus' clouds habitable pockets.
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