What can Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, teach scientists about the chemistry of life? This is what a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated how Titan’s harsh environment could still contain the building blocks of life. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the conditions to find life beyond Earth, even if they are conditions that were previously unknown.
For the study, the researchers used a series of computer models to simulate the mixing of methane, ethane, and hydrogen cyanide, the first two being hydrocarbons and all of which are present in Titan’s atmosphere. Until now, researchers have hypothesized that these hydrocarbons could not mix together with hydrogen cyanide to produce anything significant. This study builds on past research from this same team who conducted laboratory experiments mixing the three hydrocarbons at temperatures as low as -180 degrees Celsius (-292 degrees Fahrenheit), which revealed all three mixed, which had long been hypothesized to be impossible. For this latest research, the computer models found that the mixture produced a newly discovered type of crystal called a co-crystal, which comes from the hydrocarbons influencing the crystal lattice of hydrogen cyanide.
“Hydrogen cyanide is found in many places in the Universe, for example in large dust clouds, in planetary atmospheres and in comets,” said Dr. Martin Rahm, who is an Associate Professor at Chalmers University of Technology and a co-author on the study. “The findings of our study may help us understand what happens in other cold environments in space. And we may be able to find out if other nonpolar molecules can also enter the hydrogen cyanide crystals and, if so, what this might mean for the chemistry preceding the emergence of life.”
This study comes as NASA is preparing to send its Draginfly quadcopter to Titan, which will mark the first powered flight vehicle on an outer solar system world and the second powered flight vehicle after NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter flew dozens of flights on Mars. The goal of Dragonfly will be to “hop” around Titan’s surface searching for clues of potential life, either past or present.
How will Titan help scientists better understand the conditions for life in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, EurekAlert!
