New Scientist: Venus' Atmosphere Implies Life 281
WolfWithoutAClause writes "This New Scientist article says that the atmosphere of Venus has features that may only be explaineable by the existence of life in its upper atmosphere. In particular it has cartain chemicals which are extremely difficult to make inorganically. At the altitude where life is suspected the temperature is about 70C and about 1 atmosphere. There are gases there which are not naturally found together. The article suggests something is actively producing them, quite possibly, life."
Hmm..... (Score:4, Insightful)
Life Again (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Life? (Score:3, Insightful)
New Scientist do a pretty good PR job every week to get some story into the press / radio to generate some interest. Usually the story itself will be relatively light, and centred on a new piece of research which raises a possibility - it is the tabloid reporting of these that state 'Mer are all dicks, and there IS life of Venus' or some such (I'll never get that sub-ed job).
Re:Developing ideas (Score:3, Insightful)
Sulfur compounds and "proof of life" (Score:5, Insightful)
But another sentence in the article implies that nevertheless the two gases can be found together. And certainly neither of them are produced by biological activity in this case.
As for carbonyl sulfide (also "carbon oxysulfide", or COS - essentially carbon dioxide with sulfur substituting for one of the oxygens), I don't know much about how it can be synthesized. I suspect that it is a product of careful hydrolysis of thiophosgene (CSCl2 - itself not an easy thing to make), but this would hardly be occurring naturally. I know that the gas is unstable, susceptible to hydrolysis into carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide. This article [scientecmatrix.com] discusses its presence in our own atmosphere; the bulk of it comes from natural sources.
Incidentally, why do these articles on Slashdot of genuine scientific interest attract more stupid posts than usual? Everyone's trying to crack lame sci-fi jokes, and few are addressing the matter seriously.
Re:Self-contradiction in action (Score:1, Insightful)
The reason the gases are "un-natural" is because they react with each other!
Just like finding a fresh, half-eaten bagel at your desk, you know someone or something was there. You know it was recent, otherwise you would already have finished off the bagel, (or else it would have gone to waste, or green, you understand..)
If the fresh bagels keep appearing, you know that *something* is making them. Otherwise, all the bagels would soon be stale.
That is why the presence of things that react together quickly shows that something is re-supplying the process, which means life. Unless you know something we don't?