An international team of astronomers has detected phosphine on Venus, potentially signaling signs of life in the planet’s atmosphere, reports Shannon Stirone, Kenneth Chang and Dennis Overbye for The New York Times. "This is an astonishing and ‘out of the blue’ finding,” says Prof. Sara Seager. “It will definitely fuel more research into the possibilities for life in Venus’s atmosphere.”
Los Angeles Times reporter Deborah Netburn spotlights how a team of researchers, including MIT scientists, have detected phosphine on Venus. “There are two possibilities for how it got there, and they are equally crazy,” says Prof. Sara Seager. “One scenario is it is some planetary process that we don’t know about. The other is there is some life form living in the atmosphere of Venus.”
Verge reporter Loren Grush explores how researchers from MIT and other institutions have uncovered phosphine on Venus, a potential sign of life. “That’s why this is such an extraordinary detection, because it has to come from something completely unexpected,” says research scientist Clara Sousa-Silva. “At some point, you’re left with not being able to explain it. Except we do know of a strange way of making phosphine on terrestrial planets — and that is life.”
Scientists from institutions around the world, including MIT, have found detected phosphine gas in the clouds of Venus, reports Tom Metcalfe for NBC News. “If this signal is correct, there is a process on Venus we cannot explain that produces phosphine,” says research scientist Janusz Petkowski, “and one of the hypotheses is that it’s life in the clouds of Venus.”
Axios reporter Miriam Kramer writes about a new study co-authored by MIT researchers that details the detection of phosphine, a possible signal of life, in the atmosphere of Venus. “We've done everything we can, which is go through all the things that it isn't,” says research scientist Clara Sousa-Silva. “We've thought of every possible mechanism, plausible or implausible, that could make phosphine and we cannot come up with any."
Prof. Sara Seager speaks with Judi Ketteler of The Boston Globe about her new book, “The Smallest Light in the Universe.” Seager shares that the night sky still conjures up the same feelings of "awe and wonder,” that she felt as a child. “The only difference is, I wonder about the planets around those stars. I wonder if anyone’s on those looking back at us from their planet.”
Writing for The New York Times, Anthony Doerr reviews “The Smallest Lights in the Universe” and “The Sirens of Mars,” new books from Professor Sara Seager and alumna Sarah Stewart Johnson ’08, respectively. Doerr notes that “both writers exemplify the humanity of science: Seager and Johnson laugh, grieve, hope, fail, try, fail and try again.”
USA Today reporter Barbara VanDenburgh highlights Prof. Sara Seager’s new book in a roundup of “not to miss” upcoming releases. “After the unexpected death of her husband, an MIT astrophysicist looks to the stars for solace – and inside herself for answers – in this moving memoir,” writes VanDenburgh.
CNN reporter Kami Phillips spotlights Prof. Sara Seager’s new book, “The Smallest Lights in the Universe.” Phillips notes, “This moving memoir is a tear-jerking story of grief, love, loss and new beginnings that will leave you comforted, hopeful and optimistic all at the same time.”
Prof. Benjamin Weiss speaks with CNN reporter Ashley Strickland about how the Perseverance rover will select samples of Martian materials. "The key for this mission will be identifying samples so compelling that we can't afford to leave them," says Weiss. "We are selecting these for humanity, so we need to make sure they are the most exciting."
A study by MIT researchers uncovers evidence that the Earth’s global ice ages were triggered by a rapid drop in sunlight, reports Mashable. The researchers found that an “event like volcanic eruptions or biologically induced cloud formation will be able to block out the sun and limit the solar radiation reaching the surface at a critical rate that can potentially trigger ‘Snowball Earth’ events.”
Prof. Tanja Bosak speaks with Vox reporter Brian Resnick about how Martian materials collected by the Perseverance rover might provide clues about early life forms on Earth. "These [Martian] rocks are older, by half a billion or a billion years, than anything that’s well preserved that we have on Earth,” says Bosak.
Boston Globe reporter Caroline Enos spotlights the contributions of MIT researchers to the Mars 2020 mission, in particular the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment or MOXIE. “MOXIE could have a big impact on future missions if it is successful,” Enos explains.
Haystack’s Michael Hecht, the principal investigator for the Mars MOXIE experiment, speaks with Max G. Levy of Smithsonian about the challenges involved in developing MOXIE’s oxygen-producing technology. “We want to show we can run [MOXIE] in the daytime, and the nighttime, in the winter, and in the summer, and when it’s dusty out," says Hecht, "in all of the different environments."
Forbes contributor Bruce Dominey writes that a study by MIT researchers finds global ice ages may have been triggered by a rapid decrease in the amount of solar radiation reaching Earth. “Past Snowball glaciations are more likely to have been triggered by changes in effective solar radiation than by changes in the carbon cycle,” writes Dominey.