Is There Life on Venus? Here's What the New Discovery Means

Astronomers just can't keep a secret.

My favorite example of this was the 2016 landmark discovery of gravitational waves. A press conference was announced so that the whole world (outside of existing collaborators, of course) could learn together that physicists had discovered a new way of observing the universe. But 16 minutes before the conference, an astronomer tweeted a picture from a NASA celebration planned to coincide with the information’s release. It was a photo of a cake with a celebratory message scrawled out in sugary green icing: “Here’s to the first direct detection of gravitational waves!”

The secret was out. 

To be fair, this discovery was huge. The existence of gravitational waves had been predicted for over 100 years. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is so far the largest investment the National Science Foundation has ever made. So, you know, detecting gravitational waves was definitely worth a celebratory cake.

And astronomers had been abuzz about a possible revelation of gravitational waves for weeks. We noticed that one by one, all of our major telescopes had been directed to one spot on the sky … presumably to follow up on a source of great interest.

Is there life on Venus?

Astronomers found signatures of phosphine, a molecule that may be produced by some form of microbial life, in Venus's atmosphere.

So, it's no surprise that the night before the press embargo was lifted on the recent news from Venus, astronomers—and anyone who follows astronomers on Twitter—already knew what was coming: There were signs of life from our next-door neighbor.

Well, at least that’s what you would think if you read only the headlines. The reality is a bit more subtle. Astronomers found signatures of phosphine, a molecule that may be produced by some form of microbial life, in Venus's atmosphere. Or not. 

What is phosphine?

A phosphine molecule is the combination of one phosphorous atom and three hydrogen atoms. Here on Earth, we consider phosphine to be pretty toxic. It’s an explosive, corrosive, and hazardous gas...

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