OMG life on Venus!!! Well, now, hold on there Tex. Yes, astronomers announced this month that they'd found phosphine in the atmosphere of our planetary neighbour. And yes, phosphine is a pretty decent biosignature, a chemical that is pretty strongly associated with life here on Earth. Emily digs deep to explain the big gap between "Hey, look — phosphine! Huh." and "We found aliens!"

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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

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Things we talked about in this episode:

The Phosphine on Venus paper

Lead scientist Jane Greaves explains (video)

Another good video about phosphine (Periodic Videos)

Venus and the runaway greenhouse effect

Extremophiles on Earth