Before Venus turned into a toxic wasteland, it's entirely possible that life was abundant on it. Many computer models show that for nearly three billion years the planet was covered by ocean, only drying up in the last 700 million for reasons unexplained. I recently wrote a fictionalized version of the possibility that an intelligent species destroyed its own planet, kind of like the way we're doing.
The recent discovery of phosphene in Venus' atmosphere could further support the theory that life was abundant there. Phosphene is thought to only come from organic matter, however traces of it have also been found in the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn, which clearly aren't habitable, even by bacteria. Scientists think the presence of phosphene on Venus is either a sign of life or a chemical process we aren't aware of yet.
Despite my flight of fancy in the Venus story, the philosopher in me remains skeptical about there being life on our sister planet. Though it would be an exciting discovery, the fact that phosphene can be found on some of our gas giants indicates there's an inorganic process we aren't aware of yet.
This event is markedly similar to the discovery of supposed fossils in a meteorite from Mars back in 1997, which ignited the field of astrobiology. Dubbed the Allan Hills 84001, many scientists were quick to hypothesize that the rock contained fossilized Martian life. Later it turned out that the structure of the meteorite could be explained by processes that didn't involve life. I fear the same will happen with these Venus findings; man's search for first contact will likely continue.
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