[QUOTE][IMG]http://static.arstechnica.com/assets/2010/06/cassini_saturn-thumb-640xauto-14401.jpg[/IMG]
Something strange is afoot in the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan, according to data sent back from the Cassini mission. Data returned from a spectrometer on Cassini indicates that there's a large flux of hydrogen in the moon's atmosphere, with the gas forming in the upper atmosphere and being removed from the atmosphere at Titan's surface. We don't currently know what process is ensuring its removal, but the amounts of hydrogen being taken out of the atmosphere are consistent with an earlier proposal of methane-based life.
Titan's atmosphere is rich in hydrocarbon compounds, and chemical changes in the upper atmosphere are driven by the arrival of ultraviolet light from the sun. One of the expected results of the UV exposure is the liberation of molecular hydrogen from methane via a process that produces more complex hydrocarbons. With little oxygen to react with, the molecular hydrogen should remain stable. Some of it will escape into space, but a new paper indicates that a substantial amount of that hydrogen migrates down through the atmosphere towards Titan's surface.
Since it's not accumulating there, some chemical process must be removing it from the atmosphere; right now, we don't know what that process is, and, as NASA's own news piece on the topic notes, the first option for scientists is to consider simple chemistry.
However, the abstract of the paper notes that this level of hydrogen consumption is consistent with an earlier prediction of methanogenic life. In short, the life would get its energy by "burning" the hydrogen with a carbon source instead of oxygen, releasing methane (CH4) in the process. The source of the carbon is where a second paper (not yet online) comes in. Models of Titan's upper atmosphere suggest that significant amounts of acetylene should be produced by the reactions there, and this would provide an excellent source of carbon to any hypothetical metabolisms. The surprise of the second paper is that there's very little acetylene to be found on Titan's surface.
Two chemical enigmas certainly don't constitute life, and the authors of the latter paper provide a variety of ways to account for the acetylene shortage that don't involve an organism. It's also important to remember that there won't be anything resembling liquid water on the surface of Titan, so anything alive there would have to be living in a methane/ethane soup (not to mention at temperatures nearing -200°C).
Scientists are a cautious bunch, and it's likely that these results will remain in limbo for a while. The discovery of plumes of methane in the atmosphere of Mars was another chemical enigma that might be evidence for life. It's been about a year and a half since their announcement and nobody has come up with a satisfying explanation for their presence (at least as far as I'm aware), but the scientific community is nowhere close to ready to call that conclusive evidence for life.
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Source: [url]http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/06/why-is-the-hydrogen-exiting-titans-atmosphere.ars[/url]
ooh shit.. that's awesome.
If there are complex acids and hydrocarbons, then amino acids could possibly form, and create life.
It's finally happening! ([i]If[/i] there is life)
Send robots to Titan now!
Late
[url]http://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=948228[/url]
What if, by some amazing chance, we are actually observing the genesis of life on Titan?
Incredibly interesting.
if life is found on titan, i hope that that justifies a manned mission to titan
Ah fuck, ignore this thread.
Did anyone watch the program on discovery channel "Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking: Aliens" where he showed what he thought aliens would look like on a gas planet?
Someone try and find a video of it.
[QUOTE=J0E_SpRaY;22378089][img]http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/upupdndn/2008/09/24/spore-screenshot.jpg[/img][/QUOTE]
woah, what mod is that?!
[editline]02:29AM[/editline]
oh hang on... or is that just a screen shot from before they made the game shit?
I think that's just an older pic of beta spore
Awesome! Aliens!
You know what the really cool thing would be? If the mechanism for an alternate form of life we predicted turned out to be true. Life was bound to form elsewhere, but if we really do know enough to correctly conceive something completely alien then what does that mean about us?
[QUOTE=ASmellyOgre;22382970]You know what the really cool thing would be? If the mechanism for an alternate form of life we predicted turned out to be true. Life was bound to form elsewhere, but if we really do know enough to correctly conceive something completely alien then what does that mean about us?[/QUOTE]
Plus, if there's life on Titan, and on Earth, and probabally some left on Mars, that's three independant formations of life in just our solar system. Obviously, that would make the chances for intelligent life elsewhere infinately larger.
[QUOTE=Killoch0;22383115]Plus, if there's life on Titan, and on Earth, and probabally some left on Mars, that's three independant formations of life in just our solar system. Obviously, that would make the chances for intelligent life elsewhere infinately larger.[/QUOTE]
By God, someone enter these new values into the Drake equation!
What if they weren't independent? what if panspermia from one of these objects reached the others?
I reckon we shouldn't get overexcited - and we'll have all probably forgotten this thread by the time they reach a conclusion - but it would be so damn awesome to be there when they uncover life on another planet.
And yes, I used 'when'. Not 'if'.
The post that tells us that life exists on other planets will receive an immense number of informatives.
[QUOTE=johnlukeg;22384676]The post that tells us that life exists on other planets will receive an immense number of informatives.[/QUOTE]
Life exists on other planets.
As I said on another thread, Fucking Shadowgrounds :ohdear:
From Ganymede to Titan, yes sir i've been around
But there ain't no place in the whole of space
Quite like that place: Lunar City 7
points to correct guess as to where it's from
On a more serious note, this is awesome.
Red Dwarf
[quote=thathippyman;22378120]what if, by some amazing chance, we are actually observing the genesis of life on titan?[/quote]
"[b]all these worlds are yours except titan[/b]. [b]attempt no landings there[/b]."
[QUOTE=wonkadonk;22383353]What if they weren't independent? what if panspermia from one of these objects reached the others?[/QUOTE]
Then life started else where and therefore there is still life existing in an extra solar region.
Panspermia is a bit retarded when you apply ockams razor.
And there is life on mars, it's almost impossible for it to not exist.
It had an atmosphere, a fluid iron core and water at one point so there will be endolith extremophiles below the planets crust to avoid the suns radiation.
It's there, we just have to get our space suits on and dig them up.
I'd like to know why they've decided life must follow similar rules to which earth based carbon life forms rely on.
[QUOTE=RoBaDoB;22402038]I'd like to know why they've decided life must follow similar rules to which earth based carbon life forms rely on.[/QUOTE]
Because carbon forms a metric fuck ton of compounds with relative ease, the only other element that could do what carbon does is silicon and that would mean life would be laboriously slow and most probably unable to move, although we could have living gems that could create neurotoxins to help eat.
That would take so long to evolve they would probably still be developing organelles and the Nuclear envelope.
That's if they could even survive enviromental changes, although silicon could be more robust than carbon in a survival sense...
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