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Phosphine (IUPAC name: phosphane) is a colorless, flammable, highly toxic compound with the chemical formula P H 3, classed as a pnictogen hydride. Pure phosphine is odorless, but technical grade samples have a highly unpleasant odor like rotting fish, due to the presence of substituted phosphine and diphosphane ( P 2 H 4 ).
Two telescopes in Hawaii and Chile spotted in the thick Venusian clouds the chemical signature of phosphine, a noxious gas that on Earth is only associated with life, according to a study in ...
Venus's atmosphere is composed of 96.5% carbon dioxide and 3.5% nitrogen, with other chemical compounds present only in trace amounts. [1] It is much denser and hotter than that of Earth ; the temperature at the surface is 740 K (467 °C, 872 °F), and the pressure is 93 bar (1,350 psi), roughly the pressure found 900 m (3,000 ft) under water ...
Researchers’ detection of two gases, phosphine and ammonia, in the clouds of Venus raises speculation about possible life forms in the planet’s atmosphere.
In 2020, Greaves et al. detected phosphine levels of 1–5 parts per billion in Venus' atmosphere using ALMA and JCMT. [21] Historic data from Pioneer Venus also shows the possible detection of phosphine. [22] Phosphine (PH 3) is derived from phosphide (P 3-) through the following interaction with sulfuric acid in Venus' atmosphere:
In 2022, observations of Venus using the SOFIA airborne infrared telescope failed to detect phosphine, with an upper limit on the concentration of 0.8 ppb announced for Venusian altitudes 75–110 km. [57] A subsequent reanalysis of the SOFIA data using nonstandard calibration techniques resulted in a phosphine detection at the concentration ...
In September 2020, a team at Cardiff University announced that observations of Venus using the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope and Atacama Large Millimeter Array in 2017 and 2019 indicated that the Venusian atmosphere contained phosphine (PH 3) in concentrations 10,000 times higher than those that could be ascribed to any known non-biological ...
Chemical biosignatures include any suite of complex organic compounds composed of carbon, hydrogen, and other elements or heteroatoms such as oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur, which are found in crude oils, bitumen, petroleum source rock and eventually show simplification in molecular structure from the parent organic molecules found in all living ...