Alien Life On Venus

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About

Alien Life On Venus refers to the news in mid-September 2020 that scientists found phosphine gas linked to life in the atmosphere of Venus. Following this discovery, a series of memes spawned in its wake describing the news across social media platforms and sites, typically referencing the confirmation of aliens or further adding to the discussion surrounding 2020’s apocalyptic events with an impending alien invasion.

Origin

On September 14th, 2020, researchers reported the findings in a pair of papers, published on Nature.com,^[1] stating that they had detected phosphine in Venus’ thick atmosphere, which was previously thought to be inhospitable. Although the report said the researchers had not collected specimens or taken photos of them, they asserted that something appeared to be alive due to the source of the chemical.

The news quickly hit several sites and platforms, including news outlets such as the New York Times^[2] and the Guardian.^[3] On Twitter,^[4] the event also reached the trending section of the site. Several memes referencing the potential of aliens from Venus also swept the web, including a tweet from Twitter^[5] user emilydoesastro on September 14th, 2020 (seen below), which received over 330 likes and 82 retweets in roughly 25 hours.

water on Mars P422 Phosphine in Venus' atmosphere

Spread

On September 14th, 2020, Twitter^[6] user LukeMones posted a Simpsons meme referencing the news (shown below, left), receiving over 572 likes in roughly 20 hours. Burger King’s official Twitter^[7] account also commented on the event later that day (shown below, right) receiving over 2,400 likes and 320 retweets in roughly 15 hours.

BURGER KING Burger King @BurgerKing us: whEn is #2020 gIVInG uS AliENs?? venus: hi 10:06 PM - Sep 14, 2020

On Facebook,^[8] the Ancient Aliens page posted another meme on the story (seen below) with the caption “Microbes” on Venus? We’re not saying “I told you so,” but…" accumulating more than 9,100 likes and 2,000 shares in roughly 23 hours.

I TOLD YOU SO Ancient aliens image macro Giorgio A. Tsoukalos

On September 14th, 2020, Reddit^[9] also began discussing or memeing the event on the platform, including a post to the /r/science subreddit by user blackswangreen, which received over 70,000 upvotes and 2,600 comments in 26 hours. Redditor^[10] RealSalsaDragon posted another meme example to the /r/memes sub later that night (shown below), receiving over 2,000 upvotes and 85 comments in five hours.

everything else an 2020 getting attention media There be life on Venus cat looking sadly at a man holding a dog

Various Examples

Life on Venus? Astronomers See a Signal in Its Clouds The detection of a gas in the planet's atmosphere could turn scientists' gaze to a planet long overlooked in the search for extraterrestrial life. THAT'S ANOTHER ONE FOR 2020 BINGO

$THE HELL PLANET THAT IS VENUS ALIEN MARS TITAN EUROPA! ENCELADUS E\OPLANETS$

Mars, Titan, Europa, Enceladus: "we may be cold but we have the right conditions to support carbon-based life!" Venus: 900 F gnd 90 atmospheres.

Search Interest

External References

^[1] Nature – Venus Life

^[2] NY Times – Venus Life In Clouds

^[3] Guardian – Scientists Find Gas Linked To Life

^[4] Twitter – Venus Aliens

^[5] Twitter – emilydoesastro

^[6] Twitter – LukeMones

^[7] Twitter – BurgerKing

^[8] Facebook – Ancient Aliens

^[9] Reddit – r/science

^[10] Reddit – r/memes

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Top Comments

Nedhitis

Sep 15, 2020 at 01:27PM EDT

"scientists found phosphine gas linked to life in the atmosphere of Venus"

Well, not quite. It may be linked to life given what we know of Earth's conditions for phosphine origins, but scientists do not discard the possibility of Venus phosphine having a different, non-organic origin.

So, the current scientifical stance is either: there is an unknown way of generating phosphine that does not require life, or there is microbial life on Venus that they have not seen yet. Still pretty far from "ayy lmao" territory, but still interesting on its own way.

+85

Juki Nuki

Sep 15, 2020 at 02:18PM EDT

On one hand, this by no means signifies that we have alien cheeks to clap – the gas indicates unicellular activity, and that's if the gas isn't produced by some unknown, non-biological factor. What we expect to see, if anything at all, is the presence of archea-like organisms.

That said however, this is still BIG news. Not just because it's technically extraterrestrial life, but because now we know one very important thing that changes our perceived metric of that life: it's common. It has occurred twice in just one solar system, and maybe even thrice if Europa turns out to have microbes as well. The implications are staggering. It would mean life is far, far more common than we previously thought it was, and that the probability of something else being there is greater than we could have imagined. Is it possible that our solar system is just a freak coincidence? Maybe. We don't exactly have a very impressive sample size to go off of, so any confidence intervals we take from this are sketchy at best.