Rahm’s latest research, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, identifies a mechanism by which energy from the faint sun might be absorbed through Titan’s cloudy atmosphere. Researchers have been trying to understand these prebiotic conditions, and they think that hydrogen cyanide might be the key – something that Titan produces when sunlight strikes its nitrogen and methan-rich atmosphere.
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Despite its seemingly inhospitable climate, life could exist on Saturn’s moon Titan, according to research by scientists at Cornell University.
“We are used to our own conditions here on Earth”, he adds.
“Polyimine can exist as different structures, and they may be able to accomplish remarkable things at low temperatures, especially under Titan’s conditions”. They posited that the moon’s frigid, liquid methane-soaked landscape could give rise to, and support, methane-based, oxygen-free cells that metabolize, reproduce and do everything else life on Earth does. “We are saying that the early steps toward structures, catalysis and absorption of energy might be possible on Titan with polymers like those we modeled”.
Some of the leading candidates for alien life in the solar system are Europa, Jupiter’s moon and Enceladus, Saturn’s moon. ‘Amino acids, DNA and water may not be the only biochemistry for life. The hydrogen cyanide must react and transform – but what does it become on the surface?
According to a report in Washington Post by Rachel Feltman”, “Titan, Saturn’s aptly named largest moon, is exactly the kind of place we want to visit: NASA describes it as “one of the most Earth-like worlds we have found to date”. When he heard about the methane lakes on Saturn’s moon, Ballard exclaimed, “Oh man, you’ve got to go there”. If prebiotic chemisty could take place in a environment like Titan’s, then there are other, less hostile places where it could occur as well.
According to Nature World News, Titan was always a consideration because its surface has many similarities to Earth.
Still, Titan and Earth have important traits in common.
During this event, liquid methane rains down on the moon that forms rivers and large bodies of liquid as huge as lakes and seas. And if Titan is studied using our biological terms, scientists are definitely going to be at a dead end. This may enable the so-called “prebiotic chemistry”, which could confirm the existence of alien life on Saturn’s Titan.
Moving forward, the Cornell team hope to run simulations of these systems evolving over time, while investigating their reactions at various temperatures and expanding their study to examine even more complicated chemistries.
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The data from the NASA probes was plugged into a computer simulation run by Rahm and his team, which revealed that polyimine could spark life in the ultra-cold temperatures on the surface of Titan.
