life on Titan ?

[tocqueville]

Understanding Titan's tholins

Huygens data confirm that solid particles found in Titan's atmosphere resemble tholins, complex organic molecules created in laboratories.

Before the 2005 Huygens mission to Titan, ground-based observations, and the first Voyager fly-by, had revealed a nitrogen-and-methane-dominated atmosphere, suitable for the formation of carbon-rich compounds. Additional data from Huygens show that the solid particles in Titan's atmosphere are made of complex organic materials whose properties are very much like those of tholins created in laboratories. However, the amount of carbon measured in the moon's methane appears to indicate that the methane is probably not of biological origin. But that does not exclude the possibility of some kind of life. "We're but one step away from imagining that the environment there could have seen the apparition of life," says Dr François Raulin, Huygens interdisciplinary scientist at the University of Paris.

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/ESApod/SEMLW7LKKSE_0.html

Tholin is a heteropolymer formed by solar ultraviolet irradiation of simple organic compounds such as methane or ethane. Tholins do not form naturally on modern-day Earth, but are found in great abundance on the surface of icy bodies in the outer solar system.

"Triton tholin" and "Titan tholin" are nitrogen-rich organic substances produced by the irradiation of gaseous mixtures of N2 and CH4 such as that found in those moons' atmospheres; Triton's atmosphere is 99.9% N2 and 0.1% CH4 and Titan's atmosphere is 95% N2 and 5% CH4. These substances are distinct from "ice tholin", which is formed by irradiation of clathrates of water and organic compounds such as methane or ethane. The plutino Ixion is also high in this compound.

The surfaces of comets, centaurs, and many icy moons in the outer solar system are rich in deposits of Triton, Titan and ice tholins. Some researchers have speculated that Earth may have been seeded by organic compounds early in its development by tholin-rich comets, providing the raw material necessary for life to develop; see Urey-Miller experiment for discussion related to this issue.

The term "tholin" (from the Greek word meaning "muddy") was coined by famed astronomer Carl Sagan to describe the difficult-to-characterize substances he obtained in his Urey-Miller-type experiments on the gas mixtures that are found in Titan's atmosphere. It is not a specific compound but is a term generally used to describe the reddish, organic component of planetary surfaces.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tholin

[sakabatou]

1. I'm trying to wrap my head around this

So... any organic compound is... considered life?

[trotsky]

7. No, just potential evidence of life. n/t

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

13. No.

Any organic compound... contains carbon.

That is all.

[The Animator]

2. Kickass!

Imagine, an expedition to Titan. Better yet, the discovery of life on both Titan, and Mars... Calispo looks promissing too. What was that Equation again?

If X% of stars have planets, and X% number or planets from those stars have life and X% have intelligent life.. (So what, I don't really know the equation, it's been years since I've seen "Contact.") What would the discovery of life, on three, possibly four planets in our own solar system, do to that equation?

[htuttle]

4. It's possible that life is 'something the universe does'

However, interstellar-communicatiing life would seem to be somewhat more rare.

[Ready4Change]

11. Bump it up to a large degree.

The idea was that conditions such as exist here on Earth are very rare, and that only those conditions even have the rare possibility of creating life.

If we were to discover life ever existed on Mars, or that it does exist in very different conditions elsewhere, such as on Titan, then many of the conditions of that formula change from "extremely rare" to "not entirely unlikely."

However, that's just guessing. We do not have definitive proof of life on Mars or Titan.

[longship]

3. I was hoping that Huygens would have found "Sirens"

:evilgrin:

[Hand]

5. Dang! Ya beat me to it! nt

[Dead_Parrot]

6. "And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space...

...'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth."

[Nihil]

9. Good timing!

I sang that song to my sons this afternoon (one was asking how the whole
thing went as he could only remember bits).

In one particular state of mind it is definitely worrying that the
Pythons can encapsulate the problem of earth-bound humanity ...

[Ready4Change]

12. I find it comforting.

The humor of it, I find, indicates that we're still human.

[eppur_se_muova]

8. "Organic" means compound of carbon, not necessarily from living organisms.

Sorry about the confusing terminology, but *originally* 'organic' did in fact mean 'derived from organisms'. As chemistry progressed, the word slowly evolved into its current usage. Living organisms certainly produces lots of organic (carbon-containing) compounds, in fact are composed of them, but some simpler organic compounds can be made by processes not involving living organic organisms, such as the photochemistry described in this article.

Unfortunately, outside of chemistry, the 'other' meaning of the word organic became, if anything, even more firmly linked to derivation from (exclusively) living organisms. Hence the confusion when chemists and non-chemists converse on this issue.

[YankeyMCC]

10. Very exciting

I mean even if the organics detected on Titan are not from biological processes it does indicate yet another kind of world/environment/ecology that can develop organic material and the more often that happens out in the 'verse the more likely life is out there.