2. Life on Venus? | Dr Paul B. Rimmer

Bullaki Science Podcast

Dr Paul B. Rimmer is one of the scientists who contributed to the discovery of a potential biomarker (phosphine) in the atmosphere of Venus. In this podcast we explore what does this finding actually mean and go through the details of their publication ‘Phosphine gas in the cloud decks of Venus’.
The video podcast is available here: https://youtu.be/syQmBJkpfw8
Paul details the journey of this discovery lead by Prof. Jane S. Greaves, which took almost 4 years and involved a large collaboration including Cardiff University, the University of Manchester, the MIT, Kyoto Sangyo University, the Imperial College, the Open University, and the East Asian Observatory. This publication was authored by 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 and Jim Hoge.
Paul explains that we do not know any abiotic phosphine (PH3) production routes in Venus’s atmosphere, clouds, surface and subsurface, or from lightning, volcanic or meteoritic delivery. Paul explores the possibility that phosphine (PH3) could either originate from unknown photochemistry or geochemistry, or, building upon a previous work by one of the co-authors of this work (Clara Sousa-Silva), from the presence of life. Finally Paul lays down a roadmap for future investigations to better understand the origin of phosphine on Venus involving a tandem work between laboratory measurements and ground-based telescope observations.
We also discuss the role of media and click bait news, which came out with titles suggesting life on Venus and extraterrestrial or alien life on Venus.