As the exciting news of phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus turns into a point of contention in the astronomy world, we caught up with the study's lead scientist Professor Jane Greaves for the inside track. In this interview we discuss:
- Getting time on a range of professional telescopes time for a risky hypothesis
- How life could survive in the extreme environment of Venus' highly acidic atmosphere
- Floating graphite balloons in Venus' atmosphere
- Scientific challenges to this discovery being helpful rather than unwanted
- Blinding NASA pilots in the name of science
