Ancient life form breathes rocket fuel ingredient.

[Creeps]

https://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/04/17602907-ancient-life-form-breathes-rocket-fuel-ingredient?lite

It takes all kinds. :surprised:

 

[CarVac]

Modern lifeforms breathe another rocket fuel ingredient: oxygen.

 

[cruzsergio]

Does this mean we can find Life on the moon of Saturn, Titan ?

 

[luke strawwalker]

Does this mean we can find Life on the moon of Saturn, Titan ?

Titan has a nitrogen atmosphere much like Earth, but considerably denser... and EXTREMELY cold... about minus 290 degrees Fahrenheit... FAR too cold for liquid water to exist... in fact most of the rocks and sand on the surface of Titan is believed to be composed of water ice, which is as hard as granite at the temperatures found on Titan, and thus have been weathered like granite here on Earth into pebbles, stones, cobbles, and sand or grit... The surface pressure of the atmosphere on Titan is about 1.45 bar, or nearly half again as high as Earth's surface pressure (1 bar). The atmosphere is about 98% nitrogen, with the remainder being primarily hydrocarbons, mostly methane and ethane, with acetylene and other various hydrocarbon gases in trace amounts, and a trace of hydrogen. The atmosphere is choked by a layer of nitrogenous compound "smog" created from the interaction of sunlight and radiation with hydrocarbon gases in the atmosphere at extremely high altitude... giving it the characteristic orangish/brown color and mostly obscuring the surface, except at certain wavelengths... The methane and ethane rain out onto the surface, run down creeks and streams and possibly rivers, into shallow seas and lakes of methane/ethane. So basically the surface is dotted with streams and lakes of liquid natural gas, at extremely low temperature.

It's believed that a liquid water/ammonia "mantle" surrounds Titan's rocky core-- this would be kept a liquid by the warmth of tidal heating with Saturn and from the "antifreeze effect" of ammonia dissolved in water, and possibly high salinity... It's also thought possible that periodically water "volcanoes" erupt icy cold liquid water and ammonia onto the surface, where they would quickly cool into "lava flows" similar to how melted rock from Earth's mantle periodically spills out of volcanoes onto Earth's surface and cools to form new rock.

The likelyhood of life is rather remote. The extremely cold conditions mean there is very little energy to sustain any kind of life processes, and hydrocarbons are actually very poor solvents for life-sustaining compounds like salts and various minerals... water is a MUCH better solvent for these materials, most of which will readily dissolve in water but remain as suspended solids which rapidly settle out in hydrocarbons (the way sugar won't dissolve in a gasoline in a gas tank). This renders the minerals unavailable to microbial life using hydrocarbons as their "solvent" (cellular fluid). So, if there is ANY kind of life on Titan, it would be COMPLETELY different from anything we know...

Whereas the subsurface ocean of Europa, Jupiter's large moon, is deep and kept much warmer by tidal heating, thus giving the possibility of life existing there more credence, Titan's temperature is lower and the ice water in its mantle would be MUCH, MUCH colder, remaining liquid only because of the high salinity and presence of dissolved ammonia (which basically makes it fertilizer from our point of view... I used to apply TONS of liquid aqueous ammonia fertilizer every year when I was row cropping-- I preferred it to anhydrous ammonia (which is a mildly cryogenic liquid and must be kept under pressure, which boils off into a gas if it escapes from the hoses or tanks and freezes whatever it touches as it boils away... and which is EXTREMELY hygroscopic (water-seeking) where the gas readily dissolves in water, like the moisture in your lungs if you breathe in the vapors, filling you lungs with essentially aqueous ammonia, like household ammonia cleaner!... VERY poisonous!)

Thus, there is VERY low likelyhood of ANY life on Titan, simply due to the chemistry and temperature conditions there...

Later! OL JR

 

[Rokitman88]

Perhaps luke is correct about very little chance of life occuring on Europa or Titan, at least life as we know it. But then again look at the life teeming around the thermal chimneys in the Atlantic Ocean where temps are near boiling. Ya just never know what kind of life may exist in the universe.

 

[luke strawwalker]

Perhaps luke is correct about very little chance of life occuring on Europa or Titan, at least life as we know it. But then again look at the life teeming around the thermal chimneys in the Atlantic Ocean where temps are near boiling. Ya just never know what kind of life may exist in the universe.

ANYTHING is *possible*... "LIKELY" is quite another matter...

Chemistry will tell the tale... Later! OL JR