A team of researchers from the University of Cambridge conducted an in-depth analysis to rule out the possibility of life on the clouds of Venus, but the results showed that there were no indications of any species that harbored life on Venus. Many scientists have already hypothesized the presence of life on Venus. Especially in 2020, researchers claimed that phosphine gas was found in the clouds of Venus. This possibility was also explained in 1967 by biophysicist Harold Morowitz and astronomer Carl Sagan. However, recent analysis suggests something quite the opposite of these speculations.
The presence of sulfur is found in certain quantities on Venus from the compound sulfur dioxide. It is present in large quantities at low altitudes of Venus and is very rare at high altitudes. Based on these facts, scientists have recently explained that if life did exist in the clouds of Venus, they may contain some traces of “sulfur-based metabolism.” But they haven’t found any such sign there.
Paul Rimmer, an astronomer and a chemist at the University of Cambridge, said that “we’ve spent the past two years trying to explain the strange sulfur chemistry we see in Venus’s clouds. Life is great at strange chemistry, so we’re studying it.” whether there is any way to make life a possible explanation for what we see.”
The presence of life on any planet is responsible for taking in various elements from the atmosphere and releasing some of those elements into it. It’s just like what happens on Earth. We take in oxygen and release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which is a vital component for the growth of plants and trees. Venus, on the other hand, is very rich in sulfur compounds, the concentrations of which are 100,000 times higher than those present in Earth’s atmosphere.
According to Jordan, “We looked at sulfur-based ‘food’ available in the atmosphere of Venus—it’s not something you or I would like to eat, but it’s the main available energy source. If that food is being consumed by life, So we should see evidence of that being lost and gained in the atmosphere through specific chemicals.”
In addition, scientists are still skeptical about the lack of sulfur dioxide from the upper atmosphere of Venus, but according to them, there may be the possibility of the existence of an “unknown metabolism” that has not yet been discovered by humans. Also research suggests that the presence of sulfur metabolizing life on Venus is responsible for the reduction of sulfur dioxide on Venus, but as Jordan says,
“If life were to account for the SO2 levels seen on Venus, it would also break much of what we know about Venus’ atmospheric chemistry. We wanted life to be a possible explanation, but when we modeled But if life isn’t responsible for what we see on Venus, it’s still a problem to be solved – there’s a lot of weird chemistry to go on. “
