BepiColombo Detects Oxygen and Carbon Ions in Magnetosphere of Venus angielski

Mikufan, 7 miesięcy temu

Carbon is pretty common but Oxygen? That stuff is exclusively made by life here on earth…

Daxtron2, 7 miesięcy temu

😂

N_Crow, 7 miesięcy temu

So, Aliens right?

Olap, 7 miesięcy temu

Yup. Combined with phosphene it’s looking more and more likely. But still faaar from proven

very_well_lost, 7 miesięcy temu

In this case, the carbon and oxygen are coming from a much more mundane source: the solar wind.

When high-energy particles from the solar wind collide with molecules in Venus’ upper atmosphere, they carry enough energy to break some of those molecules into their constituent atoms. Since the Venusian atmosphere is almost entirely CO2, you should expect this process to generate C and O ions — which is exactly what we’ve now observed!

Faresh, 7 miesięcy temu (edited 7 miesięcy temu)

If life is proven to exist on Venus, it would be really exciting. Besides the obvious reason to be excited there’s also my thought: If in this planetary system two planets out of 98 have life on them, then that would mean that life isn’t as rare as we conceived it to be.

Edit: Had the tab open for a while without refreshing before posting, so I didn’t see the comment that says it’s just solar wind. :(