Issue |
A&A
Volume 645, January 2021
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | L4 | |
Number of page(s) | 6 | |
Section | Letters to the Editor | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202039932 | |
Published online | 24 December 2020 |
Letter to the Editor
Phosphine in Venus’ atmosphere: Detection attempts and upper limits above the cloud top assessed from the SOIR/VEx spectra
1
Planetary Aeronomy, Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy, Brussels, Belgium
e-mail: loic.trompet@aeronomie.be
2
Institute of Condensed Matter and Nanosciences, Université catholique de Louvain, Chemin du Cyclotron 2, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
3
The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA
4
Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, GEOPS, 91405 Orsay, France
Received:
17
November
2020
Accepted:
10
December
2020
Context. Recent detection of phosphine (PH3) was reported from James Clerk Maxwell Telescope and Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array observations. The presence of PH3 on Venus cannot be easily explained in the Venus atmosphere and a biogenic source located at or within the clouds was proposed.
Aims. We aim to verify if the infrared spectral signature of PH3 is present in the spectra of Solar Occultation at Infrared (SOIR). If it is not present, we then seek to derive the upper limits of PH3 from SOIR spectra.
Methods. We analyzed the SOIR spectra containing absorption lines of PH3. We searched for the presence of PH3 lines. If we did not find any conclusive PH3 spectral signatures, we computed the upper limits of PH3.
Results. We report no detection of PH3. Upper limits could be determined for all of the observations, providing strong constraints on the vertical profile of PH3 above the clouds.
Conclusions. The SOIR PH3 upper limits are almost two orders of magnitude below the announced detection of 20 ppb and provide the lowest known upper limits for PH3 in the atmosphere of Venus.
Key words: planets and satellites: atmospheres / infrared: planetary systems / techniques: spectroscopic / methods: data analysis
© L. Trompet et al. 2020
Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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