(original) (raw)

TY - JOUR AU - Greaves, Jane S. AU - Richards, Anita M. S. AU - Bains, William AU - Rimmer, Paul B. AU - Sagawa, Hideo AU - Clements, David L. AU - Seager, Sara AU - Petkowski, Janusz J. AU - Sousa-Silva, Clara AU - Ranjan, Sukrit AU - Drabek-Maunder, Emily AU - Fraser, Helen J. AU - Cartwright, Annabel AU - Mueller-Wodarg, Ingo AU - Zhan, Zhuchang AU - Friberg, Per AU - Coulson, Iain AU - Lee, E’lisa AU - Hoge, Jim PY - 2021 DA - 2021/07/01 TI - Phosphine gas in the cloud decks of Venus JO - Nature Astronomy SP - 655 EP - 664 VL - 5 IS - 7 AB - Measurements of trace gases in planetary atmospheres help us explore chemical conditions different to those on Earth. Our nearest neighbour, Venus, has cloud decks that are temperate but hyperacidic. Here we report the apparent presence of phosphine (PH3) gas in Venus’s atmosphere, where any phosphorus should be in oxidized forms. Single-line millimetre-waveband spectral detections (quality up to ~15σ) from the JCMT and ALMA telescopes have no other plausible identification. Atmospheric PH3 at ~20 ppb abundance is inferred. The presence of PH3 is unexplained after exhaustive study of steady-state chemistry and photochemical pathways, with no currently known abiotic production routes in Venus’s atmosphere, clouds, surface and subsurface, or from lightning, volcanic or meteoritic delivery. PH3 could originate from unknown photochemistry or geochemistry, or, by analogy with biological production of PH3 on Earth, from the presence of life. Other PH3 spectral features should be sought, while in situ cloud and surface sampling could examine sources of this gas. SN - 2397-3366 UR - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-020-1174-4 DO - 10.1038/s41550-020-1174-4 ID - Greaves2021 ER -