Potential Life on Venus?
Newly processed images of Venus from the Mariner 10 data by NASA JPL engineer Kevin M. Gill. (source: https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA23791)
Could the search for life be over?
It is at the core of our human existence to determine if we are alone in the universe. A question that has plagued our minds since the origins of mankind’s higher level thinking and where claiming to have found life without 100% certainty has been a trap that has fooled the likes of many.
Many current pursuits for signs of life have been targeting the usual suspects, like Mars and Europa. However, many still believe that Venus has always had potential, despite its hostile environment.
New Research Findings Indicate Biomarkers for Life
This week, a group of astronomers led by Prof. Jane Greaves and scientist William Bains published a pair of papers indicating that they have measured a presence of phosphine in the clouds of Venus. It is noted that phosphine (PH3) could be a result of some photo- or geochemical process, or even perhaps a biological one.
It has been long understood that Venus was a pretty toxic place to harbor life, where its atmosphere is hyperacidic, being comprised of mostly carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid. Because of this, Venus has long been overlooked and overshadowed by the allure of other planets on NASA’s agenda. Unlike missions to Mars, this recent measurement shows that life could exist right now in the atmosphere of Venus, rather than finding ancient markers proving that life existed billions of years ago.
Need for Physical Measurement
There is a general consensus in the scientific community that physical measurement of the atmosphere of Venus is needed to confirm the presence of life. This consensus is expected to drive NASA to consider more missions to Venus that feature sample return or in-situ measurement architectures.
Associate Professor at Columbia University and astronomer, Dr. David Kipping, explained this brilliantly in his most recent video about the results. (Side note: Cool Worlds is hands-down, one of my favorite channels on all of YouTube and I cannot recommend checking out David’s work enough)
Even before these findings were announced, there has been more active discussion about going to Venus to visit this cloud layer about 50 km up from the surface. Rocket Lab’s CEO, Peter Beck, has long communicated his own “passion for Venus” and why we need to go sooner rather than later.
“It has long been hypothesized that its atmosphere could potentially support some kind of life, and I’ve always been eager to send a probe to find out.”
Rocket Labs recent livestream showed off their secretly launched, and now flight-proven third stage: Photon, dubbed First Light. It is planned to feature both a LEO and Interplanetary configurations, suitable to host less-than 40 kg payloads to interplanetary targets.
But it’s going to take more than just a launch vehicle and interplanetary spacecraft to confirm the presence of life, a suitable payload will be needed as well. Ben Pearson, fellow engineer and maker of whereisroadster.com, sums this up nicely in his video on the topic.
We both agreed that a probe will most likely be the cheapest and lightest way to directly measure the atmosphere for signs of life. Since then, Rocket Lab has publicly discussed their mission architecture, targeting a measurement of the atmosphere in 2023. And taking it one step further, NASA has even selected a mission of this type as one of its four finalists for a DISCOVERY class mission, called DAVINCI+.
What does this all mean?
In summary, this is just one milestone in our journey to finding life beyond Earth. With these recent results, it is expected that Venus will gain popularity as a target to investigate the presence of extra-terrestrial life, with efforts from Goddard Spaceflight Center and Rocket Lab leading the pack.
In the end, a remote measurement of a potential biomarker does not indicate the presence of life. It will take us physically paying a visit to see for ourselves.
