8 history-making space stories of 2020

It’s been a hard year on Earth.

But despite a global pandemic, scientists made huge strides in understanding the universe beyond our planet. They detected far-off signals, launched astronauts into orbit around the Earth, and sent probes to Mars, the moon, and even an asteroid. In a year like no other on our planet, here are eight of this year’s top space stories.

Phosphine in Venus’ atmosphere

An image of Venus shows its clouds, where researchers detected the chemical phosphine

Although astronomer Carl Sagan proposed the idea that life could exist in the atmosphere of our planetary neighbor Venus in 1967, there had never been much evidence of it. Although a probe found methane on the planet in 1978, Sagan himself was doubtful the discovery definitively pointed to life. But this past September, a team of researchers led by Jane Greaves, an astrobiologist at Cardiff University, published a study reporting that they had detected the chemical phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus. As far as scientists know, you need something living in order to produce any significant amount of phosphine, making the chemical’s detection a compelling argument for the possibility of life in Venus’ atmosphere. Read more...