Slow news day? In 2020? Ha!

Just a few of the things that crossed my desktop this morning:

• Astronomers have detected phosphine gas in the clouds on Venus, which is a strong indicator of life.
• Astronomers have also detected a ping-pong-ball-sized black hole orbiting the sun, getting as close as 133 kAUs in its orbit.
• An aircraft made a precautionary landing on an Interstate in Tennessee, and got a full police escort on take-off. No one was hurt.
• Car manufacturers are teaming up with insurance companies to share data on almost every aspect of how you drive.
• The Democratic governor of Nevada slammed the president for holding a "reckless and selfish" rally inside a Las Vegas arena over the weekend.
• Disappointed would-be marijuana retailers have sued to get some of the remaining Illinois licenses, saying the process as run has created an oligopoly that harms consumers.
• Via pro photographer Scott Kelly, Iain Stanley explains why your camera equipment matters less than you think.
• There are currently 8 active tropical systems in the Western hemisphere today, including the 21st storm of the Atlantic season.

And last night, Cubs pitcher Alec Mills threw the club's 16th no-hitter against the Milwaukee Brewers. In the history of Major League Baseball, there have only been 315 no-hitters. The last time the Cubs won a no-hitter was 51 years ago.

Apropos the discovery of phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus, I watched the press conference, and the scientists were careful to say that they weren't claiming to have found evidence of life, only that they had looked at several possible non-biological sources of phosphine, and none seemed likely to generate enough to match the observations. I'm old enough to remember the hullabaloo when a biochemistry experiment on board the Viking Mars landers appeared to show biological activity when a Martian soil sample was mixed with a "soup" of simple organic molecules. It turned out that the chemistry of the Martian soil is altered in unusual ways because it is exposed to the Sun's ultraviolet radiation at a level that we don't get on Earth. That's what caused the reaction, not Martian bacteria. There's still a lot we don't know about the geology and chemistry of Venus. It may turn out that there are non-biological ways to produce phosphine in such an exotic and extreme environment.