Phosphine in Venus's atmosphere: evidence of life or chemistry?

[Ethernos D Grace]

You do know that chemistry doesn’t work just because you can balance each side of the supposed reaction with equal numbers of each element? Care to explain under what conditions those molecules are supposed to interact to combine the carbon dioxide and phosphine? Why is the carbon monoxide needed, when phosphorous can react directly with water? And why not react directly with hydrogen?

But I’m sure you are going to explain all this, right?

As for hyping, sure, it’s how they make their money. But they are right, in that it could be produced biologically in the atmosphere of Venus. They have ruled out some of the more obvious means of producing the gas, but since they don’t know everything about Venus, there is always the option of a geophysical cause, or something else.
What they also don’t actually tell you, though, is that microbes aren’t yet proven to produce phosphine biologically. It is widely thought to be the breakdown of certain biomass that gives rise to it, not the biological activity of that biomass itself. But more testing in labs is needed.

But please, do explain your reaction and how you think it actually works.

i think its the ultraviolet rays. it breaks compounds into smaller components and broken or single atoms have the tendency to stick together.

 

[Traverse]

P.S. You can also generate phosphine by hydrolysis of phosphides, but where and how would phosphides form? Some volcanic process, under reducing conditions, maybe?

Precisely right, and if I'd been reviewing their paper, I would've suggested that they try a little 'outside-the-sphere' thinking by opening their thermodynamic system to include highly-reduced metallic meteorites containing phosphide entering the Venusian atmospheric system. Then you'd be Q.E.D., mon ami.

 

[exchemist]

Returning to this topic from 3 years ago I found, reading an article on phosphine for another reason, that these findings are now considered doubtful: https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2020/12/aa39717-20/aa39717-20.html

So our scepticism, or puzzlement, at the time seems to have been well founded.

 

[exchemist]

But now, apparently there are findings from the James Clerk Maxwell telescope that also pick up phosphine in the Venusian atmosphere and furthermore that levels increase during the Venusian night and decrease during the daytime.

Signs of two gases in clouds of Venus could indicate life, scientists say

Separate teams find evidence of phosphine and ammonia, potential biomarkers on planet whose surface reaches 450C

www.theguardian.com

So it's game on, after all. And they also say they may have spotted traces of ammonia.

It would be great if there were evidence of life on Venus, but up in the clouds, rather than on the (450C) surface!

 

[CeasarSalad1979]

I thought that’s where women came from.

Don’t you guys have thingies that can detect DNA on other planets?

You got stuff that identifies chemicals already

 

[exchemist]

I thought that’s where women came from.

Don’t you guys have thingies that can detect DNA on other planets?

You got stuff that identifies chemicals already

1) Hahaha.
2) No.
3) yes.