Venus May Have Life! 

Don't forget that phosphine is also a side-effect of industrial processes. So this could simply be a sign of Venusian heavy industry. If so, our search for microbial life will just have to continue elsewhere.

“Relatively young, perhaps only around 700,000,000 years old” Queen Elizabeth: *ha*

It’s never aliens until it’s acid-cloud-dwelling photo-chemophile unicellular bacteriod aliens in Venus.

The phosphene was planted there by Martians to divert our attention.

me seeing 'aliens' headline on my homepage: sensationalist news, it's definitely not aliens me seeing PBS ST considering the possibility: AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Even if it's not aliens, who knows what kind of new abiotic chemical process this might reveal, and what else might be possible with it.

Chemists be like: "I hope it's unknown chemistry, not life"

Imagine paleontology on Venus. Considering the timeline of life on Earth, hard-bodied life could have lived on Venus and fossilized.

Time for a new movie with Matt Damon: The Venusian

If this ends up being life, then in a twist of irony that would mean that the first alien life may have been discovered by detecting swamp gas in the light reflected (or technically emitted in this case) by Venus.

It's possible that these beings use farting as a means of locomotion.

Occam's Teacup: The simplest explanation is "Aliens." Because it rests in a Saucer.

I, for one, welcome our Venusian overlords

It’d be funny if it’s just some tardigrades that took hold in the atmosphere of Venus after we shot them into space.

3:20 seeing that random netch made me laugh so hard... hope that one nerd in the editor team is happy now

Could you imagine the panic being on a cloud city on Venus? Honestly, It would not be fun to be on one when it malfunctions and plummets to the surface below.

massive fires, killer hornets, global pandemic, race wars, more massive fires, ...Venusian aliens would be the cherry on top

Matt, you guys have the highest quality pop cosmology channel by a mile. Even though you were weeks later discussing this breaking news, your video adds so much more to the discussion/information. Thanks for being so great !

"A d4 shaped molecule." That is the most nerd thing ever said.

Scientists: We believe there could be life on Venus *Holds up picture of a Waffle House on Venus* Government: My God

There was a serious issue with their conclusion: the last "ruled out" claim on their list of abiogenic phosphine processes is unfounded and unsourced. Venus' lack of a magnetic field means it gets a massive amount of solar wind hitting its atmosphere, which is mostly relativistic hydrogen plasma. Their proposed pathway, whether *biogenic or abiogenic*, is based on the presence of (trace) phosphoric acid in the atmosphere of Venus. It makes sense for phosphoric acid to be present given that we expect Venus to have some phosphate minerals, and phosphate minerals react with sulfuric acid to produce phosphoric acid vapor at Venus' surface temperatures. Trace phosphoric acid would react with this hydrogen plasma to produce phosphine and water: H3PO4(g) + 8∙H(p) PH3(g) + 4∙H2O(g) The only thing they show to rule that out is a single unpublished (not peer reviewed) manuscript. You can find that manuscript on a pre-print server, and it does nothing to rule out solar-wind produced phosphine, it just has a single sentence saying "we don't think so".

“...it’s a d4 shaped molecule.” 🤣

This was the best and most informative video on this topic I've seen yet. Fantastic job, guys!

When you overcome an inherent bias, any and all things are possible.

Ok, who picked acid aliens for the finale of 2020?

A bull netch on Venus? Hot take: Venus is going through their own version of Vvardenfell's Red Year.

Matt: Phosphene is a tetrahedron Me: .....hmmm Matt: it's d4 shaped Me: OHHHHHHH! Gotcha

"2020, the year of weird microbes" Now thats a T-shirt.

last time I was this early, we still thought Mars was the best bet for alien life

Time for a floaty probe with a built-in microscope.

The best and most complete video on this topic I could find. Thank you so much.

As a wise man once said "life finds a way"

Matt: Tetrahedron. Me: A what? Matt: A pyramid. Me: What? Such things can't exist! Matt: A d4. Me: Ahh, a gamer's caltrop.

I've been waiting for "space times" video on this research. You just have a way of touching all the bases and issues with a topic and I appreciate that.

"...a d4-shaped molecule." This 1st Edition geek is feeling so vindicated right now.

"If it is real, may prove extremely good news." Good news: the great filter is in front of us! #Fermiparadox

3:19 Well, no, the internal sacs of a netch are filled with "magical vapor", not hydrogen.

10:04 looks like a floating cheeto lol. I guess when it falls into the lower atmosphere it'd become a flaming hot cheeto!

"Is it possible? I mean, is it 'Eureka' possible?" ~Sherriff Carter "Eureka"

I think our biggest problem is that we look for life like our own, we just don’t know what other life forms could be

It's life, Jim.. but not as we know it. Unless it's chemistry, Jim... but not as we know it.

Microbes may have lived on Venus in more extreme conditions such as volcanic pools etc and later thrived when the environment changed to its current state.

"2020 can't get any worse" Aliens:

Neat overview of this! Thanks for uploading!

If this turns out to be some unknown chemistry or geological process, we will need to seriously reconsider current "bio signatures". Meanwhile on Vulcan: "rising CO₂ levels on Sol-d, you say? Probably the same a-biotic process that caused Sol-c to become a runaway greenhouse planet. Call off the T'Plana-Hath mission, it's not worth investigating"

13:15 *Busts down Terra's door, breaks their knees with a baseball bat "Yo, Terra, PBS SpaceTime sent me. You know what you did"

This is so cool... imagine if there were actually aliens on Venus... instead of trying for possibly decades or centuries to get to Gliese 581g or another habitable planets, we can study aliens right in our own backyard. My nerd senses are tingling

Thanks Scott Gray and everyone else for contributing to such a great channel.

Never clicked a video so fast in my life

Future History class teachers: Ah yes, 2020. The year best known for the discovery of the Venusian Plague.

In a story I'm writing, I actually have aliens from Venus. Glad to see that that's not totally out of the question.

Kurzgesagt viewers know that if Venus actually does have life, it's terrible news for humanity.

3:23 HEY! I know a Netch when I see one!

"The universe is full of life. But the universe is immense. And intelligent life living in the physical manifestation is scattered about a great and vast arena. It is concentrated in some places more than others. In some ways, it resembles the maps of your countries, where there are large areas where many human people are congregated, and there are areas where very few people live at all. Between these areas of great congregation, there are roads, great roads that are heavily traveled. In sparsely populated areas, there are very few roads, many of which are rarely if ever traveled. We want to give you this analogy of the dispersal of intelligent life in this Galaxy. We have never ventured beyond the Galaxy, so we cannot speak of the other possibilities. Yet within this Galaxy alone, there is such a diversity of life! We ourselves have only seen a very, very small part of it, for the Galaxy is very great. Your world exists in an area of congregation, an area that has many inhabited worlds. You do not see this within your own solar system, but beyond your solar system, this is most certainly true. You do not live in a sparsely populated part of the universe. You do not live in a region that is uncharted and unknown to others. This gives you certain disadvantages because your world is being scrutinized by many powerful forces. They are seeking an Intervention now because humanity has reached a point in its development where it has built the infrastructure that other races believe that they can use for themselves. This is why the Intervention did not happen at an earlier time. It was allowed for humanity to build the resources and the infrastructure first. In other words, you did the work for those who believe that you will serve them in the future. Therefore, you do not live in a distant and remote part of the Galaxy. This you must understand. Travel in space occurs along certain routes or avenues, just like in your world. Certain roads are heavily traveled; others are rarely traveled. Your world exists in an area of considerable travel, which means there are many races using these routes for commerce and trade. Here there are several emerging races such as your own, all being carefully watched by others." A quote from *The Allies of Humanity* books, which represent the perspective of a small group of ET beings consisting of individuals from those few free races in our local universe. They have been sent here to observe the ET intervention going on within and around our world and to report to us what they see and know. These briefings are a must read for all who are serious about the topic, and all of them are available free online.

10/10 ELI 5 explanation of the journals I've been reading on this with the appropriate levels of skepticism to the headlines floating around in science news.

"Venusians go home." 3000 years in the future, humanity will have taken back our planet from the invaders who sneakily Venu-formed the Earth while convincing us it was our fault.

Gas that makes the place inhospitable could also be evidence that my dad's been there.

I think microbial live should be very common in space because here on earth the first liveforms existed nearly 4 billion years ago and the earth in that time was not so habitable like it is yet 🤔

Thank you for never getting political in this stressful year of 2020. It’s nice to have a non partisan channel that just focuses on the science!

‘2020 is the year of weird microbes.’ Reinsert full stop after weird.

Great video - watched the entire thing of course!

Imagine discovering life on venus, but it's actually just corona

You should do a video describing in more detail how a multiple timeline perspective of time travel works and how it prevents paradoxes (or why it doesn't)

It's getting pretty real when Matt will even humor the idea

Good news everyone! The Planet Express crew has been commissioned to bring samples of Venusian life.

Biologist note: I think the most acidic natural environment where we've found life on earth was a pH just above 0 (like 0.2). Googling, it looks like the region of the atmosphere of venus we're talking about has a pH of -1.5. That's about 15-20 times more acidic, but if I had to guess I'd say it's more likely than not that there have been organisms on Earth at some point in the last 4 billion years that survived at that level acidity.

Life filled spacetime ? That's soo good to hear

The awesome thing about this, is even if it isn't life! We may still learn more about everything! I am so excited and seriously hope we can send a probe and hopefully get samples in my lifetime

Discovering life on Venus would be but a baby step in our endless search for our cosmic origins. And by a baby step, I mean the biggest step we've taken yet...

Niiiice you are fuelling my choose of AstroBiology as my Seminar paper this semester!

Best explanation. Love this show !

Honestly lettuce based cryptography is just two mice tied together in the middle so that either input produces entropy affecting the gravitational surroundings of the lettuce.

We made the mistake of thinking 'well, we couldn't live there, so why could anything'.

Oh snap we're Big Bang early.

I appreciate the netch used to illustrate an atmospheric life form.

Could there be any connection between the phosphine and the “unknown absorbers” (tiny particles that soak up much of the ultraviolet sunlight and some of the visible light) described to be in the atmosphere of Venus in a paper from 2019 by Lee et al?

Just seeing Mat staying there and for real looking positive regarding this thing. Maybe we have life on our nearest neighbour, gives me goose bumps. This is such interesting times. I would probably pass out, the potential day when we can read in the news papers "Life found on Venus" And what if we find remains of life from when Venus were more hospitable =O

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. In the balmy environs of earth, phosgene is mostly produced by biology. We don't have a great deal of experience with the chemistry of planet sized hot acidic atmospheres. The trace amounts of phosgene detected in the Venetian atmosphere may very well be the product of high temperature acidic atmosphere inorganic chemistry.

Thank you for the video !

The content in these videos is already excellent. But the puns at the end are exquisite.

Ever since I was introduced to the idea I have consistently thought "Duh"

Love this channel

this videos got me confused of what life is in the first place . great channel btw

There is such density of information and education in this channel and so I always look forward to the humour around the comments.

Finding the child of Venus, you can't wait to find out more about him. "Do you mind?" You ask the mother(Venus) but she slowly turns away. "Perhaps distracted then" you say. 'but where is the father' is the question nagging in your mind. Will it surface or will you continue blind? Taking a child's hand that isn't of your kind.

Serious PBS physics video. And then suddenly a Morrowind creature.

I would be interested in a video about how Venuses runaway greenhouse effect happened.

Extra points for the D4 reference! #Kudos

"This would be good news." Tell that to the Fermi Paradox.

"It's never aliens unless every other alien is ruled out". Sheesh!

this the most sensible and well spoken drunk guy i have ever seen on the internet. Of course, no way for me to confirm his story

I love the casual reference to a D4 at 5:44.

1:09 No, the average distance is the shortest for Mercury.

11:50 And my alarm bells just started ringing. Bring alien samples back to earth?! I've watched that sci fi movie, in fact, a couple of them, it didn't exactly end well. Can't we just safely study them (if indeed they are microbes) remotely? Emphasis on the word SAFELY?

Seems to be an error in the closed captions, at around eight minutes and 40 seconds in when he says "sulfuric acid", the captions say "hydrochloric acid".

Great video! Very informative. One scenario.. That upper atmosphere could have extremophile clouds that, over millions of years, have evolved neural net nervous systems. Amoeba-like clouds could furthermore have evolved reproductive and social systems similar to our own. They could be inhabiting our own earth clouds and observing us from a very stealthy location even as we speak. Their vaporous cosistency would make them undectable to our surveillance technology.

Elon musk 2019: We'll go to Mars 2020: I feel like going to Venus

I saw the title and i was like "Clickbait!" So I clicked it

Seems like a stretch but I’m in awe that we are observing things at this detail to notice

Good news? That depends on your perspective. It eliminates one possible early filer for the fermi paradox which increases the odds of a late filter of some kind.