Saturn’s largest moon Titan is a bizarre place with a thick and hazy nitrogen atmosphere, vast hydrocarbon dunes and methane/ethane rain, rivers, lakes and seas. It is thought to closely resemble what the early Earth looked like. While it is much colder than any place here, some scientists have considered the possibility that there could some form of primitive life, albeit “strange life,” unlike anything on Earth. Could the lakes and seas, while not water, still support biology? It’s a much-debated question, and now new evidence suggests that may indeed be possible. The organic compound acrylonitrile (vinyl cyanide) has now been detected in Titan’s atmosphere for the first time, which could, theoretically, form cell-like membranes under Titan’s extreme conditions.
Read More‘Strange Life’ on Titan? New organic molecule discovery could mean it’s possible