Scientists have dashed any possible hope of life in the clouds of Venus. That may seem obvious to an inexperienced observer who may know a few things about the second planet from the sun. Venus, Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor, is, for lack of a better word, a hellscape. The planet has no moons. Its surface is hot enough to melt lead, way beyond oven temperatures, according to NASA. It’s shrouded in a dense atmosphere that’s so thick with carbon dioxide and clouds of sulfuric acid that the sun would hardly be visible from the planet’s surface. That surface, by the way, is nothing but volcanic rock lashed by high temperatures, hurricane force winds, and extreme pressure. No chance of life there at all, period. No further discussion needed (via NASA).

But actually, there’s a lot more to discuss, because last fall researchers discovered phosphine, also called hydrogen phosphine, in the Venusian atmosphere, leading to exciting speculation that the planet’s clouds could possibly support microbial life (via Chemical & Engineering News). That’s because phosphine, generally an extremely toxic gas made up of phosphorus and hydrogen, according to Britannica, is linked to living microbes on Earth. Scientists therefore theorized that microorganisms living in Venus’ thick clouds could be producing the phosphines. 

No chance of life in the clouds of Venus

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