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。

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气细菌产。

And here's the best thing about phosphine.

这是磷化氢最好地方。

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命。

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

确实，看似磷化氢在这些气稀薄态环境中安稳且肆无忌惮地被制造出来。

And my favorite of those unusual molecules is phosphine.

我最喜欢不寻常分子是磷化氢。

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。

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

所以我开始考虑我们需要用什么样望远镜检测我们银河系附近行星上磷化氢。

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

在地球上，细菌长在缺环境中，如下水道和肠道，产气体磷化氢。

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

夏威夷和智利两台望远镜发现了磷化氢化学特征，磷化氢是地球上一种与命有关有毒气体。

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，还有一种前人未曾想过、不寻常、非产途径。

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命形式，所以磷化氢是怎么到达另一个星球呢？

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，也许其他行星有命对气依赖程度比我们低也会有磷化氢，可当作普及。

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.

这些态系统共同点是它们都是不依赖气宿主，所以磷化氢不能伤害它们分毫。

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，人们很难把它视为标。

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、污泥和动内脏中，这是否意味着金星上可能存在某种、某种细菌会产磷化氢？

Then months later, another signal, seen here in orange, that seemed to indicate that phosphine might be present not on a distant planet, but right next door, on the clouds of Venus.

几个月后，解读另一个信号，在这里以橙色显示，似乎意味着磷化氢可能就出现在离我们不远星球，就在我们隔壁，金星云层上。

And if it is unambiguously phosphine, we still need to figure out what or who is making it, because maybe it's true that life is the best explanation for the presence of phosphine on a planet like Venus.

如果它毫无疑问是磷化氢，我们还需要弄清楚是什么或是谁制造了它，因为可能真是如此，有命存在是磷化氢出现于金星之类星球是最好解释。

But turns out phosphine was a little more exciting than I had initially envisaged because a few months after I finished this work an astronomer, Jane Greaves, reached out to me asking for help with interpreting a telescope signal seen here in white.

结果磷化氢比我最初设想更令人兴奋。就在我结束这项工作几个月之后，天文学家简·格里夫斯向我寻求帮助解读这些以望远镜看到用白色显示信号。