Advertisement
Researchers at Cardiff University in Wales and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, together with colleagues from Asian and other British universities, have published a paper in the journal Nature Astronomy in which they claim to have found a smelly, toxic gas phosphine high in the thick clouds of the Venusian atmosphere.
Phosphine gas is generally toxic with a garlic-like smell and is found in the bodies of living beings on earth.
On Earth, phosphine is associated with life, with microbes living in the guts of animals like penguins, or in oxygen-poor environments such as swamps.
Related Articles
Advertisement
Actual life forms on Venus have not been discovered yet but observations suggest the possibility of microbial activity in the upper layers of the atmosphere The new findings will further ignite interests in space missions to Venus
However, scientists claim that the amount of gas used in the findings is not enough and a consistently rigorous approach has to be made in order to reach an incisive result.