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Life on Venus

Phosphine - Wikipedia



Scientists recently announced that they are now confident phosphine is present in the atmosphere of Venus.  This suggests -- it doesn't prove but it suggests -- that there is life on the planet. (There could be some strange but non-living chemical reactions going on, which would itself be a fascinating discovery but would make for less dramatic headlines than the one I used above.) 

On earth, phosphine results from the breakdown of organic tissue. It is the gas that produces the distinctive smell of dead fish, or garlic. 

The issue of life-on-Mars remains debatable. The issue of life-on-Venus may just be getting (excuse the pun) lively. But one can now make the case that life isn't a rarity in the universe. It isn't even a rarity in this one solar system. It may well be the norm given certain broad parameters of planets circling a sun at a given range of distances, and this solar system may simply happen to have three bodies within that range. 

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