Saturn’s largest moon Titan might have life beyond the bounds of water-based chemistry.
By Rakesh Agrawal
Humankind is never satisfied with the thought of being alone in this fathomless universe, hence has been trying from the time immemorial that his home, the earth is not the only place that supports life and it also exists elsewhere. Now, scientists have come with the idea that life could exist on Saturn’s biggest moon, Titan as a study by scientists at Cornell University reveals.
The study says, although liquid water is a requirement for life on Earth. But on Saturn’s largest moon Titan, life might exist beyond the bounds of water-based chemistry.
The latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has the findings of the researchers who studied the presence of hydrogen cyanide (HCN) in the Planet’s atmosphere and speculated that it could become a possible pre-biotic chemical key, giving birth to primitive life as HCN can react to form long chains, or polymers, one of which called polyimine.
These researchers used computer models and data collected by the NASA’s Cassini and Huygens mission and revealed that under an environment, similar to that of the Titan, polyimine could be flexible and can absorb the Sun’s energy and become a possible catalyst for life.
Titan is a frigid place and not water, but methane and ethane, cover its surface and its dense atmosphere, a yellow haze, is full of nitrogen and methane. When sunlight hits this toxic atmosphere, the reaction produces hydrogen cyanide.
Still, Titan and Earth have important common characters as its terrain have Earth-like attributes such as lakes, rivers and seas. These liquids fall as rain and affect geology through erosion.
And, if this extra-terrestrial object has lakes, rivers and seas flowing on its surface, although not of water, but of some strange liquid, some form of life could jolly well be found there!