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Could There Be Life On Titan?
Adam Korbitz writes "Astrobiology Magazine reports on new research indicating extremophile microbes may be able to live on Titan, the sixth and largest moon of Saturn — in spite of the fact that the moon is largely ice and covered with lakes of liquid methane. Titan joins Mars, Venus, Europa and Enceladus as a potential home to extremophile life in our solar system."
TFA is not about Titan being a candidate, but some research trying to recreate (some) of the conditions on Titan.
Of course TFA also is a long, long way away from life. But knowing the building blocks can form there is another step forward.
We know there are certain types of bacteria that can exist in extreme conditions on earth, but to my (untrained) mind that doesn't imply it is possible for abiogenesis to occur in the same conditions.
What does it take for life to come about from non-life. Do we have an idea?
What does it take for life to come about from non-life. Do we have an idea?
The error - and even most scientists have not understood this - is, to make a spearation between the two.
There is no single moment, where something became "alive".
It's a veeery gradual process, starting with the simples physical/chemical reactions, and evolving to more complex systems.
Even we ourselves are such very complex systems.
See... I do not even have to mention the word "life".
It's just another one of those egocentric concepts, like seeing humans as separate from animals, thinking we were the center of the universe... and so on....
So the problem is purely psychological.
This is the only reason, such an obvious concept is still mostly repressed.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
IAWTP 100%
Egocentric mankind (generally speaking, science community excluded) thinks life means Youtube, Social Networking, Church, and High End Tennis shoes.
I really wish children were taught an early age about the Universe and the life breeding ground that it is. Different conditions produce different forms, it is now up to mankind to acknowledge and accept this.
Thing is, life on Titan doesn't need to evolve on Titan . . . it just needs to survive the journey to Titan from where it evolved. Endospores are quite durable.
These statements are all true... on Earth. Plenty of reactive silanes are possible. All known biochemistry is based on carbon, so of course silicon is not going to catalyze many biochemical reactions. But carbon-based reactions do not go so efficiently in the cold... Iron chemistries might have gone wild on Mars. Why not metal-based life (lots of metals form strong alloys)?
Carbon itself is highly unreactive. This is why pencils and diamond rings are allowed on airplanes. It needs bonded groups such as amines, hydroxyls, thiols, etc. to get any meaningful work done. Carbon is just the backbone.
We simply haven't tried every possible chemical reaction in all possible environmental conditions to know which reactions might be "spontaneous" on other planets. We can sure try and guess. However, chemists are surprised every day by reaction kinetics, behaviors, and mechanisms here on Earth. We still don't understand chemistry that well. So why do we need to stifle ideas of how things might evolve on other planets with vastly different experimental conditions?
We should be looking closer at Venus instead... it's nearby, lots of strong chemicals and lots of heat make for an intriguing place for reactions to take place. Moving far away from the Sun is misguided if we're looking for interesting chemistry...
I wish I were old enough to put "Computer" on my resume.