On earth bacteria thriving in oxygen starved environments like sewers and intestines produce the gas phosphine.

在地球上，细菌生长在缺氧的环境中，如下水道和肠道，产生气体磷化氢。

And here's the best thing about phosphine.

这是磷化氢最好的地方。

But phosphine gas is produced on earth at least by bacteria that don't need oxygen.

但是磷化氢气体在地球上至少是由不需要氧气的细菌产生的。

And of course, I'll keep looking for the strange and scary biosignatures like phosphine.

当然，我还会继续寻找像磷化氢一样奇怪又可怕的生物印记。

So we don't really expect to find phosphine on Earth at all.

所以我们其实完全不期待在地球上找到磷化氢。

So I started considering what telescopes we would need to detect phosphine on planets in our galactic neighborhood.

所以我虑我们需要用什么样的望远镜检测我们银河系附近行星上的磷化氢。

And my favorite of those unusual molecules is phosphine.

我最喜欢的不寻常分子是磷化氢。

Find phosphine and you've maybe found alien life.

找到磷化氢， 你也许就找到了外星生命。

The gas is phosphine, a toxic molecule with an odor of garlic and dead fish.

这种气体是磷化氢，一种带有大蒜和死鱼气味的有毒分子。

Indeed, phosphine seems to be safely and enthusiastically produced in all of these oxygen-poor ecosystems.

确实，看似磷化氢在这些氧气稀薄的生态环境中安稳且肆无忌惮地被制造出来。

They suggested astronomers look for phosphine in the atmospheres of planets orbiting distant stars.

他们建议天文学家在环绕遥远恒星运行的行星大气中寻找磷化氢。

Two telescopes in Hawaii and Chile spotted the chemical signature of phosphine, a noxious gas that is associated with life on Earth.

夏威夷和智利的两台望远镜发现了磷化氢的化学特征，磷化氢是地球上一种与生命有关的有毒气体。

Either way, as much as I love phosphine, I don't think that's how we'll find life.

不管怎样，尽管我这么喜欢磷化氢，我不认为这样就可以找到外太空生命。

So I figured, maybe other planets with life less reliant on oxygen than ours could also have phosphine, but as a really popular biosignature.

所以我想，也许其他行星有生命对氧气的依赖程度比我们的低也会有磷化氢，可当作普及的生物印记。

Dry and acidic environment that would destroy the forms of life that exist on earth, so how did phosphine get to the other planet.

干燥和酸性环境会破坏地球上存在的生命形式，所以磷化氢是怎么到达另一个星球的呢？

And this is what makes the preliminary detection on Venus of phosphine, a potential biosignature gas, so compelling but also so confusing.

这就是在金星上初步检测到磷化氢（一种潜在的生物特征气体）如此引人注目但又如此令人困惑的原因。

But maybe that's wrong and there's an exotic but not biological way of making phosphine that no one has thought of yet.

但也可能是错的，还有一种前人未曾想过的、不寻常的、非生物的产生途径。

When I first started working on phosphine about a decade ago, people had a hard time thinking of it as a biosignature at all.

大约十年前我第一次研究磷化氢时，人们很难把它视为生物标记物。

And what all of these ecosystems have in common is that they all host organisms that are not reliant on oxygen, so phosphine can't hurt them.

这些生态系统的共同点是它们都是不依赖氧气的宿主，所以磷化氢不能伤害它们分毫。

The kind that exists in swamps, sludge, and animal guts, so does this mean that something living, some kind of bacteria maybe also exists on Venus to produce phosphine?

这种细菌存在于沼泽、污泥和动物内脏中，这是否意味着金星上可能存在某种生物、某种细菌会产生磷化氢？