Prospects for life on Venus fade — but aren’t dead yet

Signs of the gas phosphine in Venus’s atmosphere — which offered the tantalising suggestion of life — have faded, but they’re not gone completely. A new data analysis from the team that made the original exciting announcement confirms the phosphine signal, but it’s fainter than before. Astronomer Jane Greaves said she and her team redid the work because they learnt that some of the original data contained a spurious signal that could have affected the results. A separate analysis of old data from the NASA Pioneer mission also found evidence that could point to phosphine.