Alternate forms of life on Titan? :O
Posted: 04 Jun 2010, 18:28
Potentially misleading thread titles aside, papers done by Astrobiologists in 2005 hypothesised two key signs/requirements that would indicate/facilitate lifeforms of an altogether different base than here on earth. Basically they calculated that there could be microbes which live off Hydrogen (much like we live off oxygen or plants CO2) and produce Methane. Anyway recent spectroscopy analysis from Nasa's Casini probe has found evidence on Saturn's moon Titan to support the basis of the 2005 papers.
Those unfamiliar with Titan, it's the largest Saturnian moon (second largest in the solar system, larger than Mercury lol), one of the only moons with a decent atmosphere and so far the only other place in the Solar system with a constant liquid state of matter (lakes/sea's of hydrocarbons, ethane/methane). It is the most Earth like world found so far, not in it's chemical makeup, but in its environmental processes. Rain, lakes, running water, smooth rounded rocks and even volcanism (ironically made of water ice instead of rocks/silicates), and a massively dense atmosphere. It is also extremely cold, obviously being so far from the Sun and too small to have a powerful internal energy source, but also in part due to it's anti greenhouse effect (lack of greenhouse gasses, and thick atmosphere/cloud cover reflecting the sunlight away from the surface).
Anyway enough jibber jabbering on my behalf, you can Wiki Titan and here be the links on the evidence hinting at (but in no way confirming) possible life.
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/newsrel ... e20100603/
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1 ... -moon.html
Those unfamiliar with Titan, it's the largest Saturnian moon (second largest in the solar system, larger than Mercury lol), one of the only moons with a decent atmosphere and so far the only other place in the Solar system with a constant liquid state of matter (lakes/sea's of hydrocarbons, ethane/methane). It is the most Earth like world found so far, not in it's chemical makeup, but in its environmental processes. Rain, lakes, running water, smooth rounded rocks and even volcanism (ironically made of water ice instead of rocks/silicates), and a massively dense atmosphere. It is also extremely cold, obviously being so far from the Sun and too small to have a powerful internal energy source, but also in part due to it's anti greenhouse effect (lack of greenhouse gasses, and thick atmosphere/cloud cover reflecting the sunlight away from the surface).
Anyway enough jibber jabbering on my behalf, you can Wiki Titan and here be the links on the evidence hinting at (but in no way confirming) possible life.
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/newsrel ... e20100603/
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1 ... -moon.html