The Truth About Phosphine on Venus: Building a Trend and More Venus has created quite the buzz recently, due to one chemical element that keeps puzzling scientists’ work. Phosphine was detected on Venus back in 2017, but it wasn’t announced until last year. Many papers are trying to debunk or support the claim. What’s there to believe? With new data and theories, scientists are ready to explore more possibilities. Here is what you need to know. Why is Phosphine so Important? Well, what would phosphine be without a catchy story?! Back in 2017, a team of astronomers used two mighty instruments at different times.