Sign of Alien life was detected in Venus

Overview

Alien life is the extraterrestrial life that is found outside of the Earth and did not evolve on the Earth. They might be either a small bacteria or a big dinosaur and even smaller or bigger than that. So, alien life does not mean having an only round or elliptical head, big eyes, short height and like that we used to see in movies.  

Venus is our neighbour planet having a dense atmosphere of carbon dioxide which acts as a greenhouse. It traps heat inside it and ultimately the temperature in Venus becomes 471°C. With such a high temperature, water will be vapourised and mix into the cloud. As there is a thick layer of carbon dioxide (CO2) and sulphur dioxide (SO2) gas, water vapour reacts with it to form sulphuric acid (H2SO4).  

   

Fig: Black spot in the middle indicates 

Phosphine gas in Venus 

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What was actually detected?

Recently, the researcher team has detected Phosphine gas in the cloud above 50 K.M. from the surface of the Venus.

Phosphine is a gas molecule made up of one atom of Phosphorous and three hydrogen atom as shown in the given figure:

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         Fig: Structure of Phosphine

Phosphine is only obtained from three condition either from industries or from microbes living in the alimentary canal (digestive tract) of animals like penguins or from oxygen lacking area like swamp. It will be fun when we say there is either penguins or industries in the Venus. It is predicted that there was microbial organism living in the cloud of the Venus which may be the main source of this gas.

How was it detected?

The team of Professor James Greares of Cardiff University identified the presence of Phosphine in Venus while using the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii which was further confirmed its presence using the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile. 

Fig: James Clerk Maxwell Telescope

 in Hawaii

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What things deny the presence of Alien Life?

Although researcher has detected Phosphine gas in the Venus but the presence of microbial life is still unknown. At such an environmental condition of Venus, the survival of microbial life is nearly impossible. Besides, there is sulphuric acid due to which they can’t escape from its adverse effect.

But it was predicted that the microbial life has an outer layer as a covering just like the outer cover of tortoise which saves them from the effect of the environment of Venus.

What are the future plans?

We will get satisfaction when the American space agency (NASA) will launch its flagship mission in 2030. The flagship mission is one of the most expensive missions of NASA.

In this mission, they will send an experimental air balloon that will travel through the cloud of Venus. Hope this mission will be successful in its journey. After the completion of this mission, the mystery of the presence of Phosphine gas in Venus will be solved.

Fig: Design of Air Ballon for 

Flagship Mission of NASA

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Conclusion

It is not a new thing to get such surprising things in the universe. Every time, mysterious activities are happening in our universe which takes scientists many years to research them. But, this surprising thing is found on our neighbour planet. Hope, researchers will solve this mystery soon with the help of upcoming missions.