[Black Wolf]

Originally posted by karajorma


That's what you'll hear from any astrobiologist but tell a xenoscientist that and you're looking at several hours worth of lecturing about alternatives.

Like? (I'm honestly interested, not pulling the piss. It can be hard to tell on a one word post. )

[Goober5000]

Silicon-based instead of carbon-based, with ammonia instead of water, IIRC.  But any organism like that would have an extremely slow metabolism.

[Bobboau]

and that would be something that could not be described as an earthlike life form.

Titan:cool ass moon (no pun intended)
worthy of exploration, and posable home of (very non-earthlike) life
not a good place to learn about (the very very hot) young earth

[Tiara]

Ok, Titan's atmosphere, like Earth's, is full of nitrogen. But it also has methane and traces of other organic molecules. So the recipe for Titan's atmosphere is very similar to the Earth's at the time when life began. Titan may be too cold for life now. But in several billion years time, our Sun will become a red giant, swelling to fifty times its current size. Then the temperature on Titan's surface will rise to a more hospitable -100ºC. This should be warm enough to melt the frozen surface mixture of water and ammonia. So as the Earth becomes too hot to inhabit, Titan may start a whole new lease of life.

That's my whole point. I'm not saying it's identical to Earth but it's the closest to Earth we have to study. The current condition it is in allows us to study how life is formed, at least the way it was before life was formed anyway (which will be similar to how it happened on Earth even if it takes a radically different direction). This all is due to the static state it is in right now.

But as I said before in this thread, we'd all be dead by then

[Unknown Target]

Isn't methane a sign of organic life anyway? It's an organic molecule, right?

[Corsair]

Methane is a very very simple organic molecule. It looks like this

....H
....|
H-C-H
....|
....H

It's not like it's complicated or anything, just good old CH4.

[Liberator]

Bear in mind, Titan is less than half the size of Earth and a quarter the mass.

[Tiara]

Originally posted by Liberator

You insult my country every chance you get.  Can't take as you give?

At least i don't do it in a thread that isn't about a funky US Vs EU debate...

Anyway, for the topic at hand, yes, methane is a simple organic molecule. Wasn't there also ethane on Titan (C2H6)?

[ZylonBane]

Prior to listening to the ESA briefings on BBC America, I had no idea the brits pronounced methane as "meeethane".

/wonders if they have "meeth" labs over there

[Blaise Russel]

Next door to the aloominum refineries.

[ZylonBane]

You mean, "alyoominiyum", right?

[diamondgeezer]

God damned yokels

Anyway, yes, there is supposedly liquid ethane on the surface

More pics. Well, one new pic and one processed versions of an older image

__________________
Diamond Geezer has brown hair

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by ZylonBane
Prior to listening to the ESA briefings on BBC America, I had no idea the brits pronounced methane as "meeethane".

/wonders if they have "meeth" labs over there

It's not our fault that you mangle the language.

Originally posted by diamondgeezer
God damned yokels

Anyway, yes, there is supposedly liquid ethane on the surface

More pics. Well, one new pic and one processed versions of an older image

Beats the **** out Bognor Regis, at least.

Actually, whats really neat is that AFAIK this is the first picture of a non-Earth coastline........

[diamondgeezer]

And did you see this? Giant landslide on Iapetus

__________________
Diamond Geezer loves a good starfield

[Swamp_Thing]

Might i remind you nay-sayers of life on Titan, that you are forgeting the single greatest life creating force on any planet? Vulcanic activity. Even if the planet itself is cold, vulcanic pudles or thermal springs can create perfect conditions for life to prosper.
And you call yourselfs sci-fi freaks...


PS: They are not looking for little green men, over there. At most, they are looking for microbiological life, bacteria, fungus, amebas, stuff like that. And Earth has thought us that life spawns in the weirdest and unexpected places, like sulfuric acid puddles, or the deep sea with pressures of 1000+ atmospheres. Life is resilient, and will survive anything you throw at it, given enough time to adapt.

[Unknown Target]

It's true. There's some bacterias that can even exist without oxygen, they've been found deep in the ice of Antartica.
Funny that there's ice, an atmosphere comprised of organic molecules, and very ltitle oxygen on Titan

[Bobboau]

Originally posted by Unknown Target
There's some bacterias that can even exist without oxygen, they've been found deep in the ice of Antartica.

and in the space between your teeth and your gums...

and there is volcanism on titan IIRC, though it's liqid nitrogen.

[Liberator]

The current enviroment of Titan is anthema to life, much less it's formation.  The surface temperate is -178c at the poles.  It's a ball of water ice, and various common gases in a liquid form.  There are no 'Thermal Puddles' as you concieve them.  No pockets of significantly normalized temperature, and if there were, they wouldn't last for long because they're surrounded on all sides by a 3000 kilometer heat sink.  It is so cold there that no amount of insulation could protect you from the bonerotting temperatures, you heard me bonerotting.  If you somehow fell into a lake or even a small pond, you'd freeze so fast you'd never know what hit you.  It is so cold there that even specially manufactured low temp resistant alloys and composited shatter and disintigrate.

[Corsair]

From www.thebestpageintheuniverse.com
The picture NASA didn't show you...

[Swamp_Thing]

There are no 'Thermal Puddles' as you concieve them.

Hey, we don´t need to send up any more probes, we just ask Liberator! He seems to have Titan´s Enciclopedia Brittanica!! NASA should hire him instead!!!


It´s curious how you presume to know what the best astronomers on Earth still do not. You wouldn´t be "titanian", would you? Wait, maybe that´s you in that picture there!



On another note, look at another picture the NASA never intended for us to see:



Now we know...