planetaria

The pendulum may be swinging back to possible confirmation of phosphine in Venus’ atmosphere, as well as disequilibrium(!)... based on new, peer-reviewed re-analysis of data from the old Venus Pioneer mission. In Earth's atmosphere, disequilibrium is caused by life, but a lot more study needs to be done to determine if it is the same or not for Venus. See this Twitter thread from Shannon Stirone, plus press release, new paper and info about disequilibrium biosignatures: https...://twitter.com/shannonmsti/status/1374512206335766530 Press release: https://polycentric.cpp.edu//signs-of-habitability-in-ven/ Paper: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com//10.1/2020GL091327 Disequilibrium biosignatures: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/1/eaao5747

Wow! Look at this view of Mont Mercou on Mars, with wispy clouds in the sky above. From the Curiosity rover, sol 3063. Processing by Neville Thompson. Full-size images on his Flickr page: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nev-t/51060265128/

Interesting... so like Earth, Mars had a reducing atmosphere a few billion years ago, until a big oxygenization event turned it into an oxidizing atmosphere. Possible evidence for an ancient biosphere?

This might bode well for ocean moons like Europa and Enceladus...?

A Neptune-sized exoplanet in the habitable zone of Alpha Centauri A?

Great new article by Maddie Stone about the possibility of microbial life in Venus' clouds. And it mentions something overlooked in many of the other articles and discussions so far about the possible phosphine: the still-unexplained unusual dark patches in Venus' atmosphere that somehow absorb UV light, similar perhaps to photosynthetic pigments. Some studies have shown the particles are similar in size and shape to some earthly bacteria. See additional links below. It sound...s far-fetched, since the cloud layers where the patches are located are very acidic, but the temperature and pressure are much more Earth-like than on the surface. Could life survive there? At the very least, a fascinating possibility. https://scioffi.substack.com/p/what-life-on-venus-could-rea https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2017.1783 https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2020.2244 http://www.astrobio.net//dark-streaks-venus-clouds-microb/ https://gizmodo.com/dark-splotches-on-venus-could-be-si/amp https://astronomy.com//could-life-be-hiding-in-the-clouds- https://phys.org/news/2018-03-life-adrift-clouds-venus.html