2020 isn’t quite done with the plot twists just yet, because now there might be aliens.
Australian bushfires. The “Murder Hornets”. Harry and Meghan left the royal family. The failed impeachment of Donald Trump. The Harvey Weinstein verdict. The Black Lives Matter protests. The falsely reported death of Kim Jong-Un. Brexit! Oh, and the worldwide pandemic…
2020 has not been fooling around, throwing in as many huge events as it possibly can, and we need to remember that we’re still only three-quarters of the way through the year. To celebrate the 75% mark, now we have aliens.
Well, now we might have aliens. Sort of.
The Royal Astronomical Society announced today that they have discovered some rare molecules in the clouds of Venus, which might suggest that living microbes could be surviving somewhere high above the planet’s surface.
The oxygen-free planet of Venus isn’t particularly welcoming to any life forms, what with a surface temperature of around 464C (867F), but astronomers believe that the microbes could potentially be alive higher in the clouds, where the temperatures and conditions are more hospitable.
1/5 Signs of life on Venus? An international team of astronomers today announced the discovery of a rare molecule — # phosphine — in the clouds of # Venus. #VenusNewshttps://t.co/azNSsVfhr8
Credit: @ESO /M. Kornmesser/L. Calçada & @NASA /JPL/Caltech pic.twitter.com/vSUwTIv2vb— ESO (@ESO) September 14, 2020
This rare molecule, known as phosphine, is also found on Earth and is produced here by microbes that survive in similarly oxygen-free conditions.
So while that means we probably shouldn’t be expecting first contact with hyper-intelligent beings who have fully developed intergalactic travel any time soon, it does mean that if these discoveries have been found so close to home (well, relatively close, Venus is still over 140 million kms away), then who knows what else could be found further afield.
You can check out the full Royal Astronomical Society’s announcement on the discovery right here:
