1. No evidence of phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus from independent analyses
- Author
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Bryan J. Butler, Paul Hartogh, Nicolas Biver, Colin Wilson, Statia Luszcz-Cook, Sara Faggi, Richard Cosentino, Geronimo L. Villanueva, Imke de Pater, Avi Mandell, Mark Gurwell, Ravi Kumar Kopparapu, Manuela Lippi, Conor A. Nixon, Katherine de Kleer, Vincent Kofman, Stefanie N. Milam, S. B. Charnley, Patrick G. J. Irwin, Ann Carine Vandaele, Alexander E. Thelen, Martin A. Cordiner, Arielle Moullet, Thomas Fauchez, Edward Molter, Giuliano Liuzzi, Giada Arney, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Laboratoire d'études spatiales et d'instrumentation en astrophysique (LESIA (UMR_8109)), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Observatoire de Paris, and Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Paris (UP)
- Subjects
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences ,[SDU.ASTR.EP]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph]/Earth and Planetary Astrophysics [astro-ph.EP] ,FOS: Physical sciences ,Venus ,Astrophysics ,01 natural sciences ,Submillimeter Array ,Spectral line ,Atmosphere of Venus ,Atmosphere ,0103 physical sciences ,Radiative transfer ,Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM) ,010303 astronomy & astrophysics ,James Clerk Maxwell Telescope ,ComputingMilieux_MISCELLANEOUS ,0105 earth and related environmental sciences ,Line (formation) ,Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP) ,Physics ,biology ,Astronomy and Astrophysics ,biology.organism_classification ,13. Climate action ,Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics ,Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics - Abstract
The detection of phosphine (PH3) in the atmosphere of Venus has been recently reported based on millimeter-wave radio observations (Greaves et al. 2020), and its re-analyses (Greaves et al. 2021a/b). In this Matters Arising we perform an independent reanalysis, identifying several issues in the interpretation of the spectroscopic data. As a result, we determine sensitive upper-limits for PH3 in Venus' atmosphere (>75 km, above the cloud decks) that are discrepant with the findings in G2020 and G2021a/b. The measurements target the fundamental first rotational transition of PH3 (J=1-0) at 266.944513 GHz, which was observed with the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) in June 2017 and with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in March 2019. This line's center is near the SO2 (J=309,21-318,24) transition at 266.943329 GHz (only 1.3 km/s away from the PH3 line) which represents a potential source of contamination. The JCMT and ALMA data, as presented in G2020, are at spectral resolutions comparable to the frequency separation of the two lines. Moreover, the spectral features identified are several km/s in width, and therefore do not permit distinct spectroscopic separation of the candidate spectral lines of PH3 and SO2. We present the radiative transfer modelling we have performed and then discuss the ALMA and JCMT analyses in turn.
- Published
- 2021
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