Maybe It’s Aliens, or Maybe It’s Volcanoes

Oh, Venus. What’s going on with you?

I am referring, of course, to Venus the planet, second from the sun, right next door to Earth. The planet with a furnace-like surface and clouds made of sulfuric acid, the one that shows up in our night sky as a golden jewel, and that helped prove the theory that the sun, not Earth, was at the center of the solar system. Although Venus has captivated observers for centuries, the planet remains a bit of a mystery, its particularities hidden. There’s still so much scientists want to know about our planetary neighbor. Especially now. Talk to us, Venus!

The most recent, restless search that they had discovered evidence of a gas called phosphine floating in Venus’s clouds. It was quite the surprise: Based on what’s known about phosphine, the gas isn’t supposed to survive for very long in the planet’s atmosphere. On Earth, phosphine has been found in the intestines of , us included, and in swampy communities of . The group of scientists concluded that something must be replenishing Venus’s supply—perhaps a mysterious Venusian life-form.