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.

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.

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.

Time for a new movie with Matt Damon: The Venusian

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

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

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.

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 !

I, for one, welcome our Venusian overlords

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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".

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

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.

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

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

“...it’s a d4 shaped molecule.” 🤣

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"

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Never clicked a video so fast in my life

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

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"

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

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

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.

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

Great video - watched the entire thing of course!

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

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

"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.

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

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

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

"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.

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

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...

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

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.

Love this channel

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 🤔

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

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

Life filled spacetime ? That's soo good to hear

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.

Oh snap we're Big Bang early.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Hey random person scrolling down the comments... Have a wonderful day :)

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

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.

I now feel horrible about my years of advocating terraforming Venus so as to not harm any lifeforms. If you can’t destroy a pot of boiling sulfuric acid without killing an endangered species, what can you destroy?

I wish someone could dig up this old Disney cartoon that talk about what life could possible be like on other planets in the solar system. And it aim for hard the hard science at that time if I remember correctly

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

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

there is NO WAY a planet as old as Venus should be THAT geologically active....Unless... HMMMMM

Now the only step left is to send a ship to directly observe the organisms. They also found the amino acid glycine in the atmosphere.

Its crazy to see how many bodies in our solar system could have contained life, from earth to mars to Europa to now Venus. If life exists/existed on any of these bodies it can be concluded that life is abundant in our universe. That's very exciting and terrifying.

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

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?

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

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

I still think the dryness of the planet kinda makes the unknown abiotic process EXTREMELY more likely.

Also, it may not

May be the next episode's title says : "Meet our first ET neighbours (The microbial life of Venus) ! " That'd be epic 😁😁

El Chapulin Colorado already knew about the Venusians!

So much time spent looking at mars for life and all this time, clear signs were in "behind us" all along

Suddenly, my Venus flytrap at home doesn't feel so alone.

do we really want to bring back microbes that can survive sulfuric acid to earth? like how we even decontaminate stuff like that?

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?

The problem with the salad-based protocols is the unpredictability of it's primary particle - the crouton.

PBS digital studios are awesome.

In the case of confirming life on Venus, there are two ways I look at it… From a purely probability based perspective, two instances of life, in the same solar system, are still statistically insignificant. However… From a new datapoint based perspective, it inspires hope, as it would give us an example of life existing in conditions thought to be so harsh that it was improbable for life to exist there. Meaning that the conditions that are capable of supporting life are broader than we thought, and so our models for looking for life may be slightly too strict. Which means that the previous generally disappointed feelings toward it may be further on the side of pessimism than is necessarily warranted by reality, and we may yet dare to hope for abundant alien life in the universe.

They say Ethiopia is where life started Me: happy he mentioned it bc our country is never recognized much

I've always told people The thing you're searching for the most is right under your nose.The same is this case

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

Extra points for the D4 reference! #Kudos

If this is confirmed as life it seems likely to me that it would have evolved from life on earth that would have travelled to Venus via panspermia back when Venus was a watery planet. However I hope it's not since having proof of abiogenesis happening more that once would be so exciting for life elsewhere in the universe and would likely mean we could find life in most solar systems throughout the universe!

"2020 is the year of weird microbes."