Microbial Clouds Venus

Gary sent this one in – go to www.astrobio.net/venus/dark-streaks-venus-clouds-microbial-life/ … a story that comes from the Astrobiology magazine and raises the question of life on Venus. Apparently, a joint team of US and Russian scientists are working on a new mission to Venus and one of the aims is to seek out evidence of microbial life in the atmosphere of that planet. This is prompted by the occurrence of dark streaks in the dense clouds that spoil the view of the surface – and the surface is pretty inhospitable to life it is thought but what about the atmosphere? If life originates in space (disseminated by meteorites for example) there is no reason why the atmosphere of Venus was not seeded like the atmosphere of the Earth (assuming Panspermia has legs). Velikovsky famously envisaged the atmosphere of Venus as possessing life (not the microbial kind as presented here but involving what he called vermin, or flies to you and me). Her said this over 70 years ago and amazingly the idea if going to become the focus of a space mission.