Prospects for Life on Venus Fade–but Aren’t Dead Yet

Cortez Deacetis

Signals of the gas phosphine in Venus’s ambiance have faded—but they’re still there, according to a new information analysis. In September, an worldwide workforce of astronomers produced headlines when it reported getting phosphine—a probable marker of life—in the planet’s ambiance. Many studies questioning the observations and conclusions swiftly adopted. Now, the exact […]

Venus Might Host Life, New Discovery Suggests

Cortez Deacetis

There is some thing funky likely on in the clouds of Venus. Telescopes have detected unusually high concentrations of the molecule phosphine—a smelly, flammable chemical typically involved with feces, farts and rotting microbial activity—in an atmospheric layer far earlier mentioned the planet’s scorching floor. The acquiring is curious for the […]

Cosmic Rays and the Handedness of Life

Cortez Deacetis

Scientists have pondered a secret about everyday living for at least a century: Many organic molecules appear in two mirror-graphic versions, just like human fingers in point, they are regarded as “right-handed” and “left-handed.” Normal chemical reactions deliver close to equal quantities of both types of molecule. But the sugars […]

Life as We Don’t Know It

Cortez Deacetis

In 1985, when I was a toddler journalist producing my 1st higher education newspaper tale, I protected a symposium at Harvard inaugurating the Megachannel Extraterrestrial Assay (META), a laptop method intended by physicist Paul Horowitz to sift by means of millions of slim radio channels for indicators from other civilizations. […]