to stand for the mirror of the goddess although that is unlikely to be its true origin. In the Greek Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 235, the symbols for Venus and Mercury didn't have the cross-bar on the bottom stroke. Venus has been identified as the star in a range of star and crescent depictions and symbols. Habitability Speculation on the possibility of life on Venus's surface decreased significantly after the early 1960s when it became clear that the conditions are extreme compared to those on Earth. Venus's extreme temperature and atmospheric pressure make water-based life as currently known unlikely. Some scientists have speculated that thermoacidophilic extremophile microorganisms might exist in the cooler, acidic upper layers of the Venusian atmosphere). Such speculations go back to 1967, when Carl Sagan and Harold J. Morowitz suggested in a Nature article that tiny objects detected in Venus's clouds might be organisms similar to Earth's bacteria (which are of approximately the same size): While the surface conditions of Venus make the hypothesis of life there implausible, the clouds of Venus are a different story altogether. As was pointed out some years ago, water, carbon dioxide and sunlight—the prerequisites for photosynthesis—are plentiful in the vicinity of the clouds. In August 2019, astronomers led by Yeon Joo Lee reported that long-term pattern of absorbance and albedo changes in the atmosphere of the planet Venus caused by "unknown absorbers", which may be chemicals or even large colonies of microorganisms high up in the atmosphere of the planet, affect the climate. Their light absorbance is almost identical to that of micro-organisms in Earth's clouds. Similar conclusions have been reached by other studies. In September 2020, a team of astronomers led by Jane Greaves from Cardiff University announced the likely detection of phosphine, a gas not known to be produced by any known chemical processes on the Venusian surface or atmosphere, in the upper levels of the planet's clouds. One proposed source for this phosphine is living organisms. The phosphine was detected at heights of at least 30 miles above the surface, and primarily at mid-latitudes with none detected at the poles. The discovery prompted NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine to publicly call for a new focus on the study of Venus, describing the phosphine find as "the most significant development yet in building the case for life off Earth". Subsequent analysis of the data-processing used to identify phosphine in the atmosphere of