Extraterrestrial life
9/20/20 fall is a good time for hiking, picnic and watch the stars! the weather is great here lately, but the sky isn’t clear, maybe due to the west coast fire?! I am looking forward to seeing some nebula one day, hoho!
Lately, we have some exciting news about extraterrestrial life! Scientists found ph4 (phosphine) in the atmosphere of Venus. Based on what we have known today, ph4 is organic, which means it only can be produced from some form of life (or under very extreme conditions). So the finding means that either Venus contains some form of life or we need to update our knowledge on how ph4 is produced!
Venus is named after the god of love. It is one of the closest planets to the earth (the other one is Mars). Venus’s atmosphere mostly contains CO2, and on the top, there is some kind acid containing the element of S. The CO2 air close to surface is dense and heavy, and as a result, the planet is extremely hot. But there exists a layer of atmosphere on Venus whose temperature and pressure close to the earth air. Some science fiction writers have proposed a human habitat in a balloon floating in that area. There are always people who are not intimidated by the not-life-friendly conditions on Venus. They think that the Earth’s atmosphere in its early stage is also not human friendly. It is the large amount of algae (early life) that produced oxygen and changed the atmosphere!
Venus in fact is one of the earliest planets we sent probes to. But soon after we obtained the first set of pictures, the probes were destroyed by the heat, so we did not get further information about the planet. Venus has a very strange axis of rotation. One day on Venus is close to 250 earth days.
Our current approach of looking for extraterrestrial life is to first look for stars like sun, and then look for their planets. When the planet crosses its star, our telescope can capture the usable light spectrum. We then can analyze the light spectrum and look for the organic chemical elements and compound. It will be very exciting to see what our next telescope, James Webb Space Telescope, can find for us!
When planets have a moon(s), they are more likely to have life. Moon is very important to stabilize and slow down the rotation of a planet. It creates the tide in the ocean, which can make the planet warmer and also change the life in the ocean and near the shore. So lucky, the earth has a moon!! If I remember correctly, the moon is there before the life of the earth. There are different sayings on why the moon is there. Some said that the moon is an asteroid captured by the earth. Some said that a very large impact once hit the earth, and the moon is a part of the earth! Wow, both sound significant and romantic.
(I wrote the above informally based on what I remembered. I did not double check with the literature, so there can be some mistakes. )