microbial life in Venus 1 Earth 0
Who else is feeling the cognitive dissonance of today's extraordinary claim of possible microbial life signature on Venus while we crash earth's ecosystems.
Good day to revisit @KenCaldeira's 2018 Carl Sagan lecture on our mad, bad, exceptional species! kencaldeira.wordpress.com/2019/02/10/car…
Carl Sagan made his scientific name analysing Venus' atmosphere & proposed its runway greenhouse gas effect.
Life in the Clouds of Venus (1967)
nature.com/articles/21512…
A bittersweet day.
The question of life on earth's neighbours - Mars & Venus - rightly destabilises us psychologically. Historically, it is tied to our scientifc understanding of globalwarming & making tools to monitor it. From Sagan, to Soviet Vega program, to Jim Hansen... history.aip.org/climate/Venus.…
"Phosphine=sign of Life" is plausible only coz we know little of possibilities of early life. We guess E. coli makes it here, but don't know. Life made earth flip from CO2 to O2 before (Lovelock). Are we, with our hand stuck in the fossil jar, too, early life?
Too soon to tell.
Many congrats to Jane Greaves & her team who persevered for many moons in looking for life in the solar system. A stunning discovery that's sure to send us off flycatching to Venus again! And thanks to ppl at Atacama & Hawaii for observing on Corona planet
Jane Greaves @jgreaves6 in a total BOSS MOVE is gonna be immortalized in history as the woman who may have discovered extra-terrestrial life... & doesn't even go on about it on twitter!!
Such a fun announcement:
cardiff.ac.uk/people/view/91…
The clouds are balmy (~30C) & at same pressure as earth. Is life "clinging on, tucked up inside water droplets in the clouds, the last remnant of a once rich ecosystem forced to adapt to a strange environment by a rapidly changing climate" lrb.co.uk/blog/2020/sept… @chrislintott
Never felt the Two Cultures divide more acutely. Ppl in science are thrilled/sceptical/raring to send probes to Venus while normies are full of Weltschmerz - no head, no heart, no soul. Life, truly is wasted on the living.
Master trolling by Russian space agency: “We believe that Venus is a Russian planet. Our country was the 1st & only on Venus. Our equipment was there,& it conducted research" rt.com/russia/500773-…
Will accelerate joint missions w NASA, ESA, pvt firms...
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