Description
We present new results from the JCMT-Venus programme and other observations looking at potential biosignatures in the clouds of Venus. JCMT-Venus is a JCMT long term programme to monitor the atmosphere of Venus at millimetre wavelengths to determine the presence and abundance variations of a variety of molecular species over day to year timescales. Three roughly month long observing campaigns were undertaken in Feb 2022, July 2023 and September 2023. The main target molecular species are HDO, SO2 and PH3, phosphine, which is a proposed exoplanet biosignature and whose presence has been argued as a potential sign of life in the clouds of Venus. We will describe the new JCMT-Venus results and their implications for the presence and behaviour of phosphine on Venus. The detection of phosphine on Venus has been controversial and so it makes a useful case study for the detection of biosignatures elsewhere. We also present the first results from observations in the cm wavelength range in search of other potential disequilibrium molecular species which might have further implications for the possible existence of life in the clouds of Venus and for biosignature searches elsewhere.
