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A few months ago, possible signs for life on Venus made big headlines. A group of researchers claimed they had found traces of phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus and that this could be signs for microbial life. However, it did not take long for other researchers to question the result. In this video, I summarize the status as of today and explain what it all means.

The original study is here:

Phosphine gas in the cloud decks of Venus.
Greaves, J.S., Richards, A.M.S., Bains, W. et al.
Nat Astron (2020).
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-020-1174-4

The papers criticizing it are:

Re-analysis of the 267 GHz ALMA observations of Venus
No statistically significant detection of phosphine
I. A. G. Snellen et al.
A&A, 644, (2020).
https://www.aanda.org/articles..../aa/full_html/2020/1

Claimed detection of PH3 in the clouds of Venus is consistent with mesospheric SO2
Andrew P. Lincowski et al.
ApJL 908 L44 (2021).
https://iopscience.iop.org/art....icle/10.3847/2041-82

Complications in the ALMA Detection of Phosphine at Venus
Alex B. Akins et al.
ApJL 907 L27 (2021).
https://iopscience.iop.org/art....icle/10.3847/2041-82

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#science #astrophysics #astronomy

0:00 Intro
0:33 What's the question?
2:24 What did they find?
6:21 What happened next?
8:48 What does it mean?
9:28 Sponsor message