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Potential sign of alien life detected on Venus

An international team of scientists say they've found potential signs of life on the planet Venus.

There's only one planet closer to the sun than Venus and its surface temperatures reach almost 900 degrees Fahrenheit.

But scientists said on Monday (September 14) that they've detected trace amounts of a gas in its atmosphere which could come from tiny microbes.

Professor Jane Greaves is from Cardiff University in South Wales.

"I was just stunned. I mean I did this as an interesting experiment. I'd never really thought about detecting it."

So what exactly did they find?

Specifically, researchers have discovered the planet's harshly acidic clouds contain a gas called phosphine -- which on Earth can be produced by microscopic organisms that live in oxygen-starved environments.

This indicates microbes may also inhabit our closest neighbor - and provides a tantalising sign of potential life beyond Earth.

Professor Jane Greaves: "The key to what we've found is the presence of phosphine gas in the clouds of Venus. This is very unexpected because phosphine is a phosphorous atom and three hydrogen atoms and there's really very little hydrogen available in the atmosphere so we think something is...a process that's making it and one of the possibilities is it's small, floating organisms."

The team behind the study first spotted the phosphine using a telescope in Hawaii and confirmed it using a radio telescope in Chile.

They also studied potential non-biological sources of the gas such as volcanism and meteorites, but non appeared viable.

The research continues to either confirm the presence of life - or find an alternative explanation.