Earth Life Possibly Could Reach Titan

dylanduck writes "New simulations show that big asteroid impacts on Earth could have sent about 600 million boulders flying into space. About 100 have reached Jupiter's moon Europa - but they landed at 24 miles/sec. 'This must be rather frustrating if you're a bacterium that survived launch from Earth,' says a researcher. But 30 boulders from each impact reach Titan - and they land gently." From the article: "'I thought the Titan result was really surprising - how many would get there and how slowly they'd land,' Treiman told New Scientist. 'The thing I don't know about is if there are any bugs on Earth that would be happy living on Titan.' Titan's surface temperature is a very cold -179C and its chemistry is very different from Earth's."

Comments

Re:Airborne bacteria?

[isomeme]

there are bands in Jupiter's atmosphere that are comparable to Earth's atmosphere, past and present.

There is certainly a broad layer where the pressure and temperature are roughly Earthlike. However, there is nowhere in Jupiter's atmosphere where the composition is more than vaguely similar to Earth's primal (prebiotic) atmosphere, and nowhere similar to Earth's current atmosphere at all. There is effectively no free oxygen in Jupiter's atmosphere, and only tiny traces of anything other than hydrogen and helium. Most of the traces are simple alkanes and water.