If you’re looking for an exemplar of mastering multiple identities, find a telescope and point it at Venus.
In both astronomy and popular culture, Venus has always assumed a diversity of guises. Morning star, evening star. Goddess. Planet. Frankie Avalon song. A plant that eats flies. And the realm ruled by women in the unforgettable film Queen of Outer Space (starring Zsa Zsa Gabor as the nemesis of the evil queen).
So it’s not surprising that Venus enjoys sufficient celebrity status to warrant big-type headlines when it makes news, or at least a lot of social media hype. In the latest such instance, all it took was a whiff of a noxious gaseous chemical in the planet’s clouds, hinting that Venus might harbor life, to stop the presses and start the tweetstorms. After all, life on Venus would be a big surprise. Scientists have long considered it the hell of the solar system, hotter than molten lead and with an unbreathable atmosphere.
Yet, as it was so ably reported by Lisa Grossman for Science News, the chemical in question, phosphine, is no guarantee of life on Venus. It’s just that the known nonbiologic ways to make phosphine do not seem plausible in the Venusian environment. Phosphine’s persistence in the clouds shrouding Venus suggests something must be currently producing it — otherwise the sulfuric acid in the planet’s upper atmosphere would have destroyed any signs of the gas by now. So phosphine might be a signal of life — perhaps some form of anaerobic bacteria (which do not require oxygen), as phosphine would be deadly to life that relied on oxygen.
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On the other hand, maybe there’s just a gap in Earthling chemistry textbooks, and some weird geochemical reactions produce Venusian phosphine. That’s probably a better bet than airborne anaerobic alien organisms. Phosphine as evidence of life on Venus may turn out to be as reliable as the famous “canals” once regarded as evidence for life on Mars.
Still, hope for life on Venus never dies. In centuries past, in fact, many scientists simply assumed that Venus possessed life. In the late 17th century, Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, a French popularizer of science, surmised Venus to be inhabited by a gallant race of lovers. “The climate is most favorable for love matches,” he wrote. About the same time, the Dutch physicist and astronomer Christiaan Huygens contemplated life on Venus. Venusians would receive twice the light and heat from the sun as Earthlings do, he knew, but noted that Earth’s tropics, though much hotter than northern lands, are successfully occupied by people. For that matter, Huygens believed much hotter Mercury to be populated as well, and that the Mercurians would no doubt consider Earth much too cold and dark to support life.
In the 19th century, spectroscopic examination of Venus suggested that its atmosphere was similar to Earth’s, containing water vapor and oxygen. Since Earth’s atmospheric composition owed so much to life, it seemed obvious that life — at least plants— must exist on Venus as well. “If there be oxygen in the atmosphere of Venus, then it would seem possible that there might be life on that globe not essentially different in character from some forms of life on the earth,” astronomer Robert S. Ball wrote in his widely read late 19th century book The Story of the Heavens. “If water be present on the surface of Venus and if oxygen be a constituent of its atmosphere, we might expect to find in that planet a luxuriant tropical life.”
As late as 1918, Svante Arrhenius, a Nobel chemistry laureate, estimated that water was especially abundant on Venus, with humidity six times the average on Earth. “We must therefore conclude that everything on Venus is dripping wet” — thereby accelerating the growth of vegetation, Arrhenius wrote.
But the early observations of Venus’ atmosphere were crude. About a century ago, refined techniques at the Mount Wilson Observatory in California contradicted the previous findings; oxygen and water vapor actually seemed scarce in the Venusian clouds. (In fact, as spacecraft visiting Venus in recent decades have shown, the air there is nearly all carbon dioxide with a little bit of nitrogen, plus only slight traces of water.) “It may be that the exacting conditions for the origin of life have not been satisfied” on Venus, Charles E. St. John and Seth B. Nicholson wrote in 1922 in the Astrophysical Journal.
Of course, it was possible that conditions on the surface, hidden by the thick clouds, might still allow life to find a way.
“There is a possibility that the atmosphere of Venus is permeated with a finely divided dust, a possible product of intense volcanic activity, which would act as an excellent reflector of the sun’s rays and would at the same time effectually conceal the surface,” Isabel Lewis of the U.S. Naval Observatory wrote in Science News-Letter, the predecessor of Science News, in 1922. In 1926, the prominent astronomer Harlow Shapley maintained that in the solar system, Venus “more nearly fulfills the conditions (for life) than any planet other than the Earth…. But we cannot penetrate the dense covering of clouds and seek out the secrets of its surface.”
In 1927, Science News-Letter writer Frank Thone surveyed the prospects for life on other planets and declared Venus “the darling of the solar system” (excepting Earth, of course). While Mars seemed “wry and withered,” he wrote, “our sister Venus seems to have the vigor and sap of life in her.”
Yet as Thone acknowledged, the thick atmosphere guarding Venus’ surface from view made the question of life there unanswerable — probably, Thone guessed, for many generations.
And so today, the mystery remains unsolved. Phosphine sightings leave the question of whether Venus hosts life in a situation similar to that of Mars, long ago, when the newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst (legend has it) cabled an astronomer asking for an article on the topic. “Is there life on Mars? Please cable one thousand words,” Hearst wrote. To which the astronomer cabled back: “Nobody knows. Repeat 500 times.”
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
