Written by Madhav Bahl, a grade 8 student

Our planet is fast reaching the maximum amount of population that it can hold. Many scientists think Earth has a maximum carrying capacity of 9 billion to 10 billion people. Actually, it is around 7 billion to 8.5 billion. Well, how do you calculate the seven billion?  A scientist from Harvard named Edward O. Wilson bases this estimate on calculations of the Earth’s available resources.

The amount of water a person needs to consume a day so that everybody has the same amount of water in the world is only a mere 50 liters, which is roughly about two and a half buckets of water. 

So, what do you do if your planet starts to run out of water? Look for another planet!

This is what many scientists started to do. They looked at Mercury, but that was too small and too close to the sun for life. Then they moved to see if life would be possible on Venus.

Until the mid-20th century, the surface environment of Venus was believed to be similar to Earth’s, hence it was widely believed that Venus could harbour life. In 1870, the British astronomer Richard A. Proctor said the existence of life on Venus was impossible near its equator, but possible near its poles.

With this hope, scientists kept on trying to find out more about Venus. When more and more research was done they found that Venus was not habitable for humans, as water could not be found in a liquid state on this planet.

However, on September 15, 2020 scientists found that the atmosphere of Venus contained traces of Phosphine gas. Phosphine on Earth can be attributed to living organisms on earth. But wait, this doesn’t mean there is life on Venus. It is possible that some nonbiological processes unknown on Earth may have churned the molecule into existence.

All of us would have thought about aliens because of suspicious chemistry before. But while there’s much follow up work to be done by scientist and experts in this area many complications or denials that will probably come. It’s also possible today’s the day humans are introduced to the ultimate others.