Serious doubt cast on Venus phosphine finding

[CloudWatcher]

Phil Plait has a new column on followup attempts to confirm the sightings of phosphine in the clouds of Venus. And it's not looking good for confirming the initial observations.

Life above hell? Serious doubt cast on Venus phosphine finding
...

And that’s where the issues come in. The data are noisy, meaning there’s a lot of random up-and-down wiggling in the spectrum plot. There are lots of ways to trying to smooth over that noise; one common way is to fit a mathematical equation to the overall spectrum. In this case they used a 12th–order polynomial, which can be problematic. It can actually try to fit the noise; in other words it can make noise look real signal.

...

Atoms and molecules absorb light at multiple wavelengths, so if you think you’ve found it at one wavelength, it’s best to look for it at the others, too. So another team observed Venus with the Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii to look for phosphine at a different wavelength, specifically about 10 microns. They didn’t find anything there.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. My Son The Astronomer said the consensus

in the astronomy community was that the posphine was just a chemical, and zero evidence of some kind of life.

He's researching exoplanets, by the way.

[CloudWatcher]

3. posphine vs. signs of life

The authors of the original paper were very careful to not claim it was a definitive sign of life and to suggest that there could be errors in their analysis. They appear to have done exactly the right thing and published enough information that others could review their data and point out potential flaws.

[eppur_se_muova]

2. If you try too hard to find something, you'll find it whether it's there or not.

This was a case of theoretically-inspired speculation shaping interpretation of evidence.

[CloudWatcher]

4. Math

I think you're right. But also ... doing the math right is hard, even for the professionals.

We should teach people to expect mistakes and to be appropriately skeptical of what they hear.