JPL: What is Consuming Hydrogen and Acetylene on Titan?
Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 6:59 pm
What is Consuming Hydrogen and Acetylene on Titan?
NASA JPL Cassini Equinox Mission (2010-190) - 03 June 2010
New Scientist - 04 June 2010
NASA JPL Cassini Equinox Mission (2010-190) - 03 June 2010
Hints of life found on Saturn moonTwo new papers based on data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft scrutinize the complex chemical activity on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan. While non-biological chemistry offers one possible explanation, some scientists believe these chemical signatures bolster the argument for a primitive, exotic form of life or precursor to life on Titan's surface. According to one theory put forth by astrobiologists, the signatures fulfill two important conditions necessary for a hypothesized 'methane-based life.'
One key finding comes from a paper online now in the journal Icarus that shows hydrogen molecules flowing down through Titan's atmosphere and disappearing at the surface. Another paper not yet online now in the Journal of Geophysical Research - Planets maps hydrocarbons on the Titan surface and finds a lack of acetylene.
New Scientist - 04 June 2010
Two potential signatures of life on Saturn's moon Titan have been found by the Cassini spacecraft. But scientists are quick to point out that non-biological chemical reactions could also be behind the observations.
Titan is much too cold to support liquid water on its surface, but some scientists have suggested that exotic life-forms could live in the lakes of liquid methane or ethane that dot the moon's surface.
In 2005, Chris McKay of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field and Heather R Smith of the International Space University in Strasbourg, France, calculated that such microbes could eke out an existence by breathing in hydrogen gas and eating the organic molecule acetylene, creating methane in the process.
This would result in a lack of acetylene on Titan and a depletion of hydrogen close to the moon's surface, where the microbes would live, they said.
Now, measurements from the Cassini spacecraft have borne out these predictions, hinting that life may be present.