What a Signal in a Failed Star’s Clouds Means for the Search for Life

What a Signal in a Failed Star’s Clouds Means for the Search for Life: The detection of the molecule phosphine in a brown dwarf’s atmosphere may help astronomers in their search for life elsewhere in the Milky Way. By Katrina Miller On a brown dwarf dozens of light years from Earth, astronomers have detected trace amounts of phosphine, a molecule that on this planet is produced by living things.