29 JANUARY 2021 Ever since the discovery of a chemical called phosphine on Venus was announced in September last year, the scientific community has been in a tizzy. Scientists have published papers back and forth, trying to debunk or bolster the claim.
With two new papers landing this week, some are claiming the nails are being hammered into the phosphine coffin. We suspect, however, that the detection will continue to be scrutinised and discussed for some time to come. So what's the actual deal? Read on for a brief primer. Phosphine on Venus? Why does it matter? The discovery itself is pretty fascinating. Using two different instruments at different times - the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) in 2017 and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in 2019 - a team led by astrobiologist Jane Greaves of Cardiff University in the UK detected the spectral signature of a chemical called phosphine in the Venusian atmosphere, at 20 parts per billion. The findings were published in