It's a godawful acid place Barely visited in Space Race And the surface is burning hot And the pressure is really a lot

But Roscosmos, Esa and Nasa Say it's not really very far To the brightest of nighttime lights To the Morning and Evening Star

And the clouds thirty miles high Form a habitable zone in the sky Though still acid and filled with wind Still we're starting to look for:

Phosphine, thousand times what Earth has! Where from? Scientists were feeling shook, Worked their way through the book! But they couldn't find any Source they thought was plausible Save one, not from any Chem textbook But let's give Bio a look: Is there life on Venus...?

(With apologies to David Bowie)

Seriously, this is some crazy news. And unlike other recent "Life In Space" stories (eg, ʻOumuamua, various 'alien megastructures'), this one actually seems to have gotten the astro crowd excited.

hS