Titan's Largest Crater Might Be the Perfect Cradle For Life (sciencemag.org) 13
sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: Saturn's frigid moon Titan has long intrigued scientists searching for life in the Solar System. Its surface is coated in organic hydrocarbons, and its icy crust is thought to cover a watery ocean. An asteroid or comet slamming into the moon could theoretically mix these two ingredients, according to a new study, with the resulting impact craters providing an ideal place for life to get started.
The idea is "very exciting," says Lea Bonnefoy, a planetary scientist and Titan expert at the University of Paris. "If you have a lot of liquid water creating a temporary warm pool on the surface, then you can have conditions that would be favorable for life," she says. And, "If you have organic material cycling from the surface into the ocean, then that makes the ocean a bit more habitable."
The idea is "very exciting," says Lea Bonnefoy, a planetary scientist and Titan expert at the University of Paris. "If you have a lot of liquid water creating a temporary warm pool on the surface, then you can have conditions that would be favorable for life," she says. And, "If you have organic material cycling from the surface into the ocean, then that makes the ocean a bit more habitable."
But (Score:2)
not as we know it, Jim.
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Not necessarily, Titan's temperature is very low on average, but it does have cryovolcanism, i.e. liquid water volcanoes and all the ingredients for life like us we know is needed. Despite Europa and Enceladus having liquid water oceans under a thick ice crust Titan is still one of the best contenders for life outside Earth.
One day slashdot might have definitive news (Score:1)
You need more than just the right chemicals (Score:3)
You need energy and energy gradiants and there's precious little of either on titan. Something may get going (depending on either chance or some other factor as we simply don't know yet) but once it does it'll be veeery slow development so that it even after billions of years I doubt there'd be much other than something at the complexity level of the simplest bacteria if that.
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I wonder if there could not be extremely slow forms of life in some environments.
Researchers have discovered such life forms at the Post Office.
Frigid moon? (Score:2)
That sounds like a parodic black metal song:
When it's cold
And when It's dark
The frigid moon
Can ignore you...
Was Ethopia a crater? (Score:2)
This makes you wonder if the location in what is now known as Ethiopia where "Lucy" was found was once a crater.
might be (Score:2)
Might be. And might not be. Does might make right? Nope.
What would be their politics? :) (Score:2)