Phosphine Gas in the Cloud Decks of Venus

Jane S. Greaves; Anita M. S. Richards; William Bains; Paul B. Rimmer; Hideo Sagawa; David L. Clements; Sara Seager; Janusz J. Petkowski; Clara Sousa-Silva; Sukrit Ranjan; Emily Drabek-Maunder; Helen J. Fraser; Annabel Cartwright; Ingo Mueller-Wodarg; Zhuchang Zhan; Per Friberg; Iain Coulson; E'lisa Lee; Jim Hoge

doi:10.1038/s41550-020-1174-4

Phosphine Gas in the Cloud Decks of Venus

Jane S. Greaves, Anita M. S. Richards, William Bains, Paul B. Rimmer, Hideo Sagawa, David L. Clements, Sara Seager, Janusz J. Petkowski, Clara Sousa-Silva, Sukrit Ranjan, Emily Drabek-Maunder, Helen J. Fraser, Annabel Cartwright, Ingo Mueller-Wodarg, Zhuchang Zhan, Per Friberg, Iain Coulson, E'lisa Lee, Jim Hoge

Astronomy and Astrophysics Theory Group

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

102 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Measurements of trace gases in planetary atmospheres help us explore chemical conditions different to those on Earth. Our nearest neighbour, Venus, has cloud decks that are temperate but hyperacidic. Here we report the apparent presence of phosphine (PH ₃) gas in Venus’s atmosphere, where any phosphorus should be in oxidized forms. Single-line millimetre-waveband spectral detections (quality up to ~15σ) from the JCMT and ALMA telescopes have no other plausible identification. Atmospheric PH ₃ at ~20 ppb abundance is inferred. The presence of PH ₃ is unexplained after exhaustive study of steady-state chemistry and photochemical pathways, with no currently known abiotic production routes in Venus’s atmosphere, clouds, surface and subsurface, or from lightning, volcanic or meteoritic delivery. PH ₃ could originate from unknown photochemistry or geochemistry, or, by analogy with biological production of PH ₃ on Earth, from the presence of life. Other PH ₃ spectral features should be sought, while in situ cloud and surface sampling could examine sources of this gas.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	655-664
Number of pages	10
Journal	Nature Astronomy
Volume	5
Issue number	7
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-020-1174-4
Publication status	Published - 14 Sept 2020

Access to Document

10.1038/s41550-020-1174-4

2009.06593v1Submitted manuscript, 2.31 MB

https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/134883/

Cite this

Greaves, J. S., Richards, A. M. S., Bains, W., Rimmer, P. B., Sagawa, H., Clements, D. L., Seager, S., Petkowski, J. J., Sousa-Silva, C., Ranjan, S., Drabek-Maunder, E., Fraser, H. J., Cartwright, A., Mueller-Wodarg, I., Zhan, Z., Friberg, P., Coulson, I., Lee, E., & Hoge, J. (2020). Phosphine Gas in the Cloud Decks of Venus. Nature Astronomy, 5(7), 655-664. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-020-1174-4

@article{b924ba49fab24e5bb16809f06da0f9ea,

title = "Phosphine Gas in the Cloud Decks of Venus",

abstract = "Measurements of trace gases in planetary atmospheres help us explore chemical conditions different to those on Earth. Our nearest neighbour, Venus, has cloud decks that are temperate but hyperacidic. Here we report the apparent presence of phosphine (PH 3) gas in Venus{\textquoteright}s atmosphere, where any phosphorus should be in oxidized forms. Single-line millimetre-waveband spectral detections (quality up to ~15σ) from the JCMT and ALMA telescopes have no other plausible identification. Atmospheric PH 3 at ~20 ppb abundance is inferred. The presence of PH 3 is unexplained after exhaustive study of steady-state chemistry and photochemical pathways, with no currently known abiotic production routes in Venus{\textquoteright}s atmosphere, clouds, surface and subsurface, or from lightning, volcanic or meteoritic delivery. PH 3 could originate from unknown photochemistry or geochemistry, or, by analogy with biological production of PH 3 on Earth, from the presence of life. Other PH 3 spectral features should be sought, while in situ cloud and surface sampling could examine sources of this gas. ",

author = "Greaves, {Jane S.} and Richards, {Anita M. S.} and William Bains and Rimmer, {Paul B.} and Hideo Sagawa and Clements, {David L.} and Sara Seager and Petkowski, {Janusz J.} and Clara Sousa-Silva and Sukrit Ranjan and Emily Drabek-Maunder and Fraser, {Helen J.} and Annabel Cartwright and Ingo Mueller-Wodarg and Zhuchang Zhan and Per Friberg and Iain Coulson and E'lisa Lee and Jim Hoge",

note = "Funding Information: Venus was observed under JCMT Service Program S16BP007 and ALMA Director{\textquoteright}s Discretionary Time programme 2018.A.00023.S. As JCMT users, we express our deep gratitude to the people of Hawaii for the use of a location on Mauna Kea, a sacred site. We thank M. Gurwell, I. Gordon and M. Knapp for useful discussions; personnel of the UK Starlink Project for training; S. Dougherty for award of ALMA Director{\textquoteright}s discretionary time; and D. Petry and other Astronomers on Duty and project preparation scientists at ALMA for ensuring timely observations. The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope is operated by the East Asian Observatory on behalf of The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan; Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics; the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute; Center for Astronomical Mega-Science (as well as the National Key R&D Program of China with no. 2017YFA0402700). Additional funding support is provided by the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom and participating universities in the United Kingdom (including Cardiff, Imperial College and the Open University) and Canada. Starlink software is currently supported by the East Asian Observatory. ALMA is a partnership of ESO (representing its member states), NSF (United States) and NINS (Japan), together with NRC (Canada), MOST and ASIAA (Taiwan), and KASI (Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, AUI/NRAO and NAOJ. Funding for the authors was provided by STFC (grant ST/ N000838/1, D.L.C.); Radionet/MARCUs through ESO (J.S.G.); the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI (grant no. 16H02231, H.S.); the Heising-Simons Foundation, the Change Happens Foundation, the Simons Foundation (495062, S.R.); the Simons Foundation (SCOL award 59963, P.B.R.). RadioNet has received funding from the European Union{\textquoteright}s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 730562. J.S.G. is a Visitor at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge. S.R. is a SCOL Postdoctoral Fellow. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2020, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.",

year = "2020",

month = sep,

day = "14",

doi = "10.1038/s41550-020-1174-4",

language = "English",

volume = "5",

pages = "655--664",

journal = "Nature Astronomy",

issn = "2397-3366",

publisher = "Springer Nature",

number = "7",

}

Greaves, JS, Richards, AMS, Bains, W, Rimmer, PB, Sagawa, H, Clements, DL, Seager, S, Petkowski, JJ, Sousa-Silva, C, Ranjan, S, Drabek-Maunder, E, Fraser, HJ, Cartwright, A, Mueller-Wodarg, I, Zhan, Z, Friberg, P, Coulson, I, Lee, E & Hoge, J 2020, 'Phosphine Gas in the Cloud Decks of Venus', Nature Astronomy, vol. 5, no. 7, pp. 655-664. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-020-1174-4

TY - JOUR

T1 - Phosphine Gas in the Cloud Decks of Venus

AU - Greaves, Jane S.

AU - Richards, Anita M. S.

AU - Bains, William

AU - Rimmer, Paul B.

AU - Sagawa, Hideo

AU - Clements, David L.

AU - Seager, Sara

AU - Petkowski, Janusz J.

AU - Sousa-Silva, Clara

AU - Ranjan, Sukrit

AU - Drabek-Maunder, Emily

AU - Fraser, Helen J.

AU - Cartwright, Annabel

AU - Mueller-Wodarg, Ingo

AU - Zhan, Zhuchang

AU - Friberg, Per

AU - Coulson, Iain

AU - Lee, E'lisa

AU - Hoge, Jim

N1 - Funding Information: Venus was observed under JCMT Service Program S16BP007 and ALMA Director’s Discretionary Time programme 2018.A.00023.S. As JCMT users, we express our deep gratitude to the people of Hawaii for the use of a location on Mauna Kea, a sacred site. We thank M. Gurwell, I. Gordon and M. Knapp for useful discussions; personnel of the UK Starlink Project for training; S. Dougherty for award of ALMA Director’s discretionary time; and D. Petry and other Astronomers on Duty and project preparation scientists at ALMA for ensuring timely observations. The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope is operated by the East Asian Observatory on behalf of The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan; Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics; the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute; Center for Astronomical Mega-Science (as well as the National Key R&D Program of China with no. 2017YFA0402700). Additional funding support is provided by the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom and participating universities in the United Kingdom (including Cardiff, Imperial College and the Open University) and Canada. Starlink software is currently supported by the East Asian Observatory. ALMA is a partnership of ESO (representing its member states), NSF (United States) and NINS (Japan), together with NRC (Canada), MOST and ASIAA (Taiwan), and KASI (Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, AUI/NRAO and NAOJ. Funding for the authors was provided by STFC (grant ST/ N000838/1, D.L.C.); Radionet/MARCUs through ESO (J.S.G.); the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI (grant no. 16H02231, H.S.); the Heising-Simons Foundation, the Change Happens Foundation, the Simons Foundation (495062, S.R.); the Simons Foundation (SCOL award 59963, P.B.R.). RadioNet has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 730562. J.S.G. is a Visitor at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge. S.R. is a SCOL Postdoctoral Fellow. Publisher Copyright: © 2020, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.

PY - 2020/9/14

Y1 - 2020/9/14

N2 - Measurements of trace gases in planetary atmospheres help us explore chemical conditions different to those on Earth. Our nearest neighbour, Venus, has cloud decks that are temperate but hyperacidic. Here we report the apparent presence of phosphine (PH 3) gas in Venus’s atmosphere, where any phosphorus should be in oxidized forms. Single-line millimetre-waveband spectral detections (quality up to ~15σ) from the JCMT and ALMA telescopes have no other plausible identification. Atmospheric PH 3 at ~20 ppb abundance is inferred. The presence of PH 3 is unexplained after exhaustive study of steady-state chemistry and photochemical pathways, with no currently known abiotic production routes in Venus’s atmosphere, clouds, surface and subsurface, or from lightning, volcanic or meteoritic delivery. PH 3 could originate from unknown photochemistry or geochemistry, or, by analogy with biological production of PH 3 on Earth, from the presence of life. Other PH 3 spectral features should be sought, while in situ cloud and surface sampling could examine sources of this gas.

AB - Measurements of trace gases in planetary atmospheres help us explore chemical conditions different to those on Earth. Our nearest neighbour, Venus, has cloud decks that are temperate but hyperacidic. Here we report the apparent presence of phosphine (PH 3) gas in Venus’s atmosphere, where any phosphorus should be in oxidized forms. Single-line millimetre-waveband spectral detections (quality up to ~15σ) from the JCMT and ALMA telescopes have no other plausible identification. Atmospheric PH 3 at ~20 ppb abundance is inferred. The presence of PH 3 is unexplained after exhaustive study of steady-state chemistry and photochemical pathways, with no currently known abiotic production routes in Venus’s atmosphere, clouds, surface and subsurface, or from lightning, volcanic or meteoritic delivery. PH 3 could originate from unknown photochemistry or geochemistry, or, by analogy with biological production of PH 3 on Earth, from the presence of life. Other PH 3 spectral features should be sought, while in situ cloud and surface sampling could examine sources of this gas.

U2 - 10.1038/s41550-020-1174-4

DO - 10.1038/s41550-020-1174-4

M3 - Article

SN - 2397-3366

VL - 5

SP - 655

EP - 664

JO - Nature Astronomy

JF - Nature Astronomy

IS - 7

ER -

Phosphine Gas in the Cloud Decks of Venus

Abstract

Access to Document

Fingerprint

Cite this