Seems the horrible nightmare of heat and acid that is the atmosphere of Venus has something else: phosphine. This chemical is *usually* a product of biological processes, and is difficult to produce otherwise. The suggestion is made that there is an existing ecosystem of microorganism floating in the clouds of Venus at altitudes where the temperatures are temperate. These likely single-celled organisms would have had to have evolved billions of years ago when Venus was presumably Earth-like, and survived the transition to hellish conditions that now prevail by wafting up into the sky.

Scientists Detect Apparent Signature of Life in Venus’s Atmosphere

What will *probably* end up being the case is that the phosphine is the result of some previously unexpected chemical process involving the heat, pressure and existing soup of horrifying chemicals that make up the land and sky of Venus. But for now, “life” can’t be easily discounted as a possibility.