New research by Dutch astronomers challenges the results of the explosive study published a few weeks ago suggesting the presence of phosphine (and therefore potentially life) in the atmosphere of Venus.
In mid-September, a research team led by astronomer Jane Greaves of Cardiff University announced that they had detected phosphine in the upper atmosphere of Venus. . The announcement made a lot of noise insofar as these molecules can be produced by anaerobic bacteria on our planet.
To be clear, these researchers have never claimed the discovery of life on Venus . They simply pointed out that this could explain the presence of said phosphine. It was also possible that the substance was generated by exotic chemical reactions that we do not yet understand and have nothing to do with life.
That said, an independent reassessment of the methods used by these researchers has nonetheless reached an entirely different conclusion. According to new research by Ignas Snellen and his team at Leiden University in the Netherlands, there is indeed “no statistical evidence of the presence of phosphine in the Venusian atmosphere.
In the original study, published in Nature Astronomy , the researchers had relied on data collected by the Atacama Large Millimeter / submillimeter Array (ALMA), in northern Chile. Concretely, Ignas Snellen and his team examined the same data provided by the original research team. They then applied the same methodological approach to see if they too could isolate the spectral signal of phosphine (267 GHz).Conclusion, the Dutch team could not verify the results .
In practical terms, this is what it means. When "analyzing the sky", astronomers are constantly faced with problems with background noise. The main challenge then is to "unravel" the desired signals from the unwanted signals.
Here, the original team claimed to have recorded far more "good data" than bad (i.e. high signal-to-noise ratio). A statement with which the news does not agree. On the contrary, the signal-to-noise ratio of the proposed phosphine signal was actually quite low according to them. They even consider it too weak to be significant.
So, "the greatest discovery scientist of all history will still have to wait. Indeed, as astronomer Carl Sagan so aptly put it:“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence ". In this case, we still lack evidence. To be truly considered, the results of this study should have been reproduced by several independent teams.
That said, this story may not be over yet. Indeed, the new document itself has not yet been peer-reviewed.
