At the annual meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society in Cardiff, astronomer Jane Greaves of Cardiff University in Wales announced that her team has again detected phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus. She had previously reported the same discovery in 2020, but it was met with criticism at the time and was not confirmed by outside observations. The scientist claims that it was necessary to look for this chemical compound deep in the atmosphere of Venus and found it there.

On earth, phosphine is a product of the vital activity of a number of microorganisms. Chemists do not know of other airborne sources of this compound. This allows us to accept phosphine as a basis for the search for biological life in space. Spectral analysis of starlight passing through the atmospheres of exoplanets and analysis in the radio frequency range make it possible to search for this and other connections at insane distances. But you can also look for phosphines on planets in our system.

Greaves’ group used the James Clark Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) at the Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii to search for phosphines in Venusian clouds. And he found it there, which is theoretically possible. Biological life is unlikely to exist on the surface of the planet. It’s so “hot” in there that lead melts. But at 50 km and higher in Venus’ atmosphere, conditions are pretty earthy in terms of both pressure and temperature.

Attempts by other groups of scientists to find phosphine have been unsuccessful. Russian scientists quickly dismissed this possibility, and the Americans spent the time of the NASA SOFIA flying observatory looking for phosphine and found nothing.

According to Jane Greaves, it had to be searched at a different altitude. His group again found traces of phosphine. “approximately in the middle of Venus’ cloud cover”. We are waiting for the reaction of the scientific world. It’s a shame that Rocket Lab’s mission to Venus has been delayed to 2025 or later. They would fly there this year in search of elusive phosphine.