‘Life on Venus’ plot thickens as new discovery indicates NASA may have found phosphine as far back as 1978, but didn’t realize it

Researchers poring over archives from previous missions to Venus claim that NASA may have first detected phosphine signatures (indicating potential microbial life) back in 1978, and they just went unnoticed for the past 42 years.

On September 14, the world was rocked by the announcement that phosphine, a toxic gas that might indicate microbial life, had been detected in the clouds above Venus. There are no known natural processes that might explain the volume of the gas found.

While it’s still too early to definitively state there is life on Venus producing the gas, the bombshell announcement briefly wrested attention away from Mars in the search for life elsewhere in our solar system.

However, Rakesh Mogul, a biochemist at Cal Poly Pomona in California, and his colleagues found phosphine signatures may actually have been detected by the Pioneer 13 probe which reached Venus' orbit in December 1978.

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