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  • BBC Sky at Night

    CUTTING EDGE

    Nov 19, 2020 4 minutes

    Looking back into Venus’s clouds

    Scientists are checking for evidence of phosphine from Pioneer mission data

    This September, a team of researchers led by Jane Greaves at Cardiff University published spectra collected by radio telescopes that indicated the presence of phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus. The debate this announcement subsequently triggered has been almost as heated as the Venusian climate… Experts have already published papers calling into question whether the gas is definitely there, as well as questioning what geological processes or atmospheric chemistry could have produced the gas, or whether it could feasibly be the signature of ultra-hardy Venusian life forms.

    I was particularly taken by the response from Rakesh Mogul at

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