Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Lakes on Titan
Interesting news coming out of the Cassini-Huygens mission- it seems the space probe is finding evidence of rivers and lakes on the Saturnine moon's surface. Obviously not bodies of water, the liquids inhabiting the basins and channels would almost certainly be methane or ethane. Scientists and sci-fi writers have speculated for years that the surface of Titan might have liquid methane present.
And from there, the obvious leap to make is to question whether life could arise in such an environment. There are copious amounts of organic chemicals on Titan, but no water or gaseous oxygen. And it's colder than death there. But as we see here on Earth, life has evolved pretty much everywhere, sometimes in places we thought anathema to life, such as oceanic vents that spew H2S. Any life on Titan would be both very simple, and very bizarre, requiring the ability to metabolize hydrocarbons.
Although, looking at the Cassini pictures, I think I see evidence of great hordes of Titan Bears fishing the methane rivers for Saturn Salmon.

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