ALMA Confirms Complex Chemistry in Titan’s Atmosphere

[bystander]

ALMA Confirms Complex Chemistry in Titan’s Atmosphere:
Saturn’s Moon Offers Glimpse of Earth’s Primordial Past
ALMA | NRAO | ESO | NAOJ | 2017 Jul 28

Saturn’s frigid moon Titan has a curious atmosphere. In addition to a hazy mixture of nitrogen and hydrocarbons, like methane and ethane, Titan’s atmosphere also contains an array of more complex organic molecules, including vinyl cyanide, which astronomers recently uncovered in archival ALMA data. Under the right conditions, like those found on the surface of Titan, vinyl cyanide may naturally coalesce into microscopic spheres resembling cell membranes.

[c]
Archival ALMA data have confirmed that molecules of vinyl cyanide
reside in the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn's largest moon. In a liquid
methane environment, vinyl cyanide may form membranes.
Credit: NRAO Education and Public Outreach (NRAO/AUI/NSF);
Cassini Imaging Team; NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/JHUAPL/Univ. of Arizona;
Music by Getty Images[/c][hr][/hr]

Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is one of our solar system’s most intriguing and Earth-like bodies. It is nearly as large as Mars and has a hazy atmosphere made up mostly of nitrogen with a smattering of organic, carbon-based molecules, including methane (CH4) and ethane (C2H6). Planetary scientists theorize that this chemical make-up is similar to Earth’s primordial atmosphere.

The conditions on Titan, however, are not conducive to the formation of life as we know it; it’s simply too cold. At ten times the distance from the Earth to the Sun, Titan is so cold that liquid methane rains onto its solid icy surface, forming rivers, lakes, and seas.

These pools of hydrocarbons, however, create a unique environment that may help molecules of vinyl cyanide (C2H3CN) link together to form membranes, features resembling the lipid-based cell membranes of living organisms on Earth.

Astronomers using archival data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), which was collected over a series of observations from February to May 2014, have found compelling evidence that molecules of vinyl cyanide are indeed present on Titan and in significant quantities. ...

NASA Finds Moon of Saturn Has Chemical That Could Form ‘Membranes’
NASA | Goddard Space Flight Center | 2017 Jul 28

ALMA detection and astrobiological potential of vinyl cyanide on Titan - Maureen Y. Palmer et al

• Science Advances 3(7):e1700022 (28 Jul 2017) DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1700022

[bystander]

Has Cassini found a universal driver for prebiotic chemistry at Titan?
ESA | Space Science | Cassini-Huygens | 2017 Jul 26

[img3="Titan's complex atmosphere - Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI"]http://www.esa.int/var/esa/storage/imag ... _large.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

The international Cassini-Huygens mission has made a surprising detection of a molecule that is instrumental in the production of complex organics within the hazy atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan.

Titan boasts a thick nitrogen and methane atmosphere with some of the most complex chemistry seen in the Solar System. It is even thought to mimic the atmosphere of early Earth, before the build-up of oxygen. As such, Titan can be seen as a planet-scale laboratory that can be studied to understand the chemical reactions that may have led to life on Earth, and that could be occurring on planets around other stars.

In Titan’s upper atmosphere, nitrogen and methane are exposed to energy from sunlight and energetic particles in Saturn’s magnetosphere. These energy sources drive reactions involving nitrogen, hydrogen and carbon, which lead to more complicated prebiotic compounds.

These large molecules drift down towards the lower atmosphere, forming a thick haze of organic aerosols, and are thought to eventually reach the surface. But the process by which simple molecules in the upper atmosphere are transformed into the complex organic haze at lower altitudes is complicated and difficult to determine. ...

Carbon Chain Anions and the Growth of Complex Organic Molecules in Titan's Ionosphere - R. T. Desai et al

• Astrophysical Journal Letters 844(2):L18 (2017 Aug 01) DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/aa7851
  arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1706.01610 > 06 Jun 2017

[MargaritaMc]

Here's the URL for the above piece from ESA
http://esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Sci ... y_at_Titan

[bystander]

Here's the URL for the above piece from ESA
http://esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Sci ... y_at_Titan

Thank you, Margarita. I must have been in a hurry.

[MargaritaMc]

Thank you, Margarita. I must have been in a hurry.

As we say where I live - ¡De nada!