https://nitter.1d4.us/NASAJPL/status/1669056455901851648

Great filter critics: :picard-excited:

Great filter adherents :blob-on-fire:

    • KurtVonnegut [comrade/them]
      ·
      1 year ago

      It would 100% be possible for humans to live on Venus. You would just need to live on a blimp in the sky (so the pressure on the surface does not crush you), and bring your own oxygen. You could even walk around without a space suit on the deck of your blimp-house, because the temperature high in Venus' atmosphere is around 70-80 degrees Fahrenheit at earth's pressure.

      Of course, it would be logistically insane to bring enough air/water/food to Venus to support trillion-dollar steampunk blimp houses, but it is technically possible. You can't walk around without a spacesuit on Mars (the atmosphere is too thin), and on Enceladus or Europa you would have to live underwater. Or, really, under ice. Under maybe a mile of ice (which is terrifying to me).

      • Posadas [he/him, they/them]
        hexagon
        ·
        1 year ago

        Under maybe a mile of ice (which is terrifying to me).

        On one hand, terrifying.

        On the other hand, you would actually have radiation protection unlike Mars

    • cosecantphi [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      My understanding is that this doesn't actually say anything about whether or not life exists on Enceladus. It's just that the presence of phosphorous is something life as we know it on Earth requires, so seeing it on Enceladus checks another box like the presence of water does. It doesn't necessarily imply the existence of life on its own.

      The whole life on Venus fiasco was a bit different. Astronomers thought they had detected phosphine on Venus, which is a chemical that we don't believe could exist naturally under those conditions unless it was catalyzed by the metabolism of potential microbes. Unfortunately it turned out these astronomers hadn't actually detected phosphine.