Possible mechanism of life on Titan's Moon

in Popular STEMyesterday

Possible mechanism of life on Titan's Moon



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On June 10, 2025, the University of Cambridge published a NASA investigation on the possibilities that life could arise on Titan, for life to arise on Earth or anywhere else, you have to have a series of elements, but apart from the elements, organic matter, molecules of all kinds, gases, also apart from all the elements for that recipe for life, you also need energy.


You need that energy for a dynamic and complex chemistry to occur, life is basically movement and change, evolution; Researchers have proposed a mechanism for the formation of structures similar to proto cells on Titan, something also essential for life, because life needs a certain level of isolation, individuality, life is not a general soup, cells have their sources of energy, their DNA, their vital functioning, bacteria can then unfold, then the evolution of those initial proto cells begins.


To form a protocell, to form a first living being, you need a certain isolation, that living being is not fused in some way with the rocks, or with the liquid, or with the gas, it has to have something, a protective layer, we have the skin and the bacteria have their protective membrane and the cells also have their type of membrane, therefore, the researchers believe that the first step would be that structures similar to that protocell skin could be formed that would protect the entire chemical mechanism that would occur inside the cell, to for life to arise.



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Titan, apart from Earth, is the other world within the solar system, well, the other world that we know of in the universe at the moment, which has liquid on its surface, although its seas and lakes are not full of water, they have liquid hydrocarbons such as ethane and methane, hydrocarbons, organic compounds, it should be good for life to form, on Earth it is believed that liquid water was essential for the origin of life, as we know it, but many astrobiologists have wondered whether titan liquids can also provide a favorable environment for the formation of the molecules necessary for life, either as we know it or perhaps as we do not know it, with the variant of using this type of different liquids and at a completely different temperature level.


Titan has a temperature of -172 or -176º Celsius, it is extremely cold, yes, you could walk around Titan without needing a pressurized suit, you would not need a space suit, you would need a mask because there is no oxygen to breathe, but the atmospheric pressure, which is one and a half times that of Earth, would allow you to walk around Titan with a suit, yes, thermal that protects you from the cold, but without needing a space pressure suit.



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What the new NASA research does is describe and discover with the elements that are on Titan a process by which stable vesicles can be formed on Titan. These vesicles would be the precursor compartments so that elements could form within them and then living cells could emerge.


And what they have discovered is that with the elements that exist on Titan and with the dynamics that exist on Titan of rain, because on Titan it rains, there are also rivers, these vesicles can form even in the icy conditions of the lakes and hydrocarbon seas of Titan, in fact, they focused on two types of to form, through the droplets of sea spray from the seas of Titan, and through the raindrops, both the droplets of Dew such as raindrops striking the surface of Titan's lakes and seas can form these bubbles.


These bubbles serve as a double-layer vesicle. or bilayer, where organic molecules and organic material can concentrate and begin to process a chemistry that ultimately leads to the creation of primitive cells or protocells. In summary, what they did was analyze the conditions on Titan, see if with the elements that are on Titan they can create the type of envelopes that the protocell, the primitive life forms, need to be able to begin to emerge and they have discovered that yes, they can be formed and in large quantities with the issue of rain and sea spray on Titan, even in the extreme cold conditions that exist on that giant moon of Saturn.


And this could have happened billions of years ago. Will there be life on Titan?




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