Poster on Possible Life on VenusICSS Master's Student Impresses at International Conference

5 August 2024

Photo: Varuna Deopersad Private

Is there life beyond Earth? This question was at the forefront of an internationally renowned conference in Copenhagen, where high-caliber researchers gathered to discuss the topic. ICSS student Varuna Deopersad made a significant impression by presenting her Master's thesis – and won a prize.

Those searching for extraterrestrial life typically look for biosignatures—molecules that likely indicate the presence of life, either in the past or at present. For instance, oxygen is a key biosignature on Earth, as it is essential for energy generation by living organisms. Phosphine is another important bioindicator; composed of hydrogen and phosphorus, it is highly toxic and can only be produced artificially or by microorganisms, at least on Earth.

Great excitement ensued when phospine was measured in the atmosphere of Venus a few years ago. But doubts quickly followed. Can it even be accurately measured using existing methods?

That’s where Varuna Deopersads research as ICSS Master's student at the University of Hamburg comes in. Her research question: If there truly is phosphine in Venus's atmosphere, at what concentration and wavelength can we detect it? Utilizing a computer model, she demonstrated that current methods are indeed capable of detecting phosphine in Venus's atmosphere, reinforcing the validity of previous studies, even though this does not provide conclusive proof of life there. 

She presented her research as a poster at the UNIQUE2024 conference, titled "Are We a Unique Species on a Unique Planet?" in Copenhagen, where her work was honored as  one of the three best posters of the event (out of 30 posters). You can download the poster here.

UNIQUE 2024 took place from July 30th to August 2nd, bringing together world-leading experts to explore whether Homo sapiens is the only species in the galaxy with the intelligence to understand how life originated and evolved, or if the universe is already teeming with a variety of life forms, similar or vastly different from ourselves.