Next month, NASA's Cassini spacecraft will make its 126th and final pass by Saturn's largest moon Titan. During its service, the Cassini probe allowed scientists to compile a detailed map of Titan as a geologically active celestial body, on the surface of which rivers of liquid hydrocarbons flow, the atmosphere of which has a complex chemical composition, and under the ice crust of which an ocean of salt water is likely hidden.
However, the main question associated with Titan remains unanswered to this day: can life exist on the surface of Titan, which resembles an ancient Earth?
“The combination of organic matter and liquid, both in the form of water in the subsurface ocean and in the form of methane / ethane in surface lakes and seas, means Titan can be regarded as an ideal place in the solar system to test hypotheses about habitability, prebiotic chemistry, also the prevalence of life in the universe,”writes Sarah Hörst, a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA, and one of the authors of the new study.
Titan, the size of which is comparable to the size of Mercury, is the only celestial body in the solar system, apart from Earth, with a dense atmosphere and stable pools of fluids on the surface. However, instead of water, liquid hydrocarbons are poured into the lakes of Titan with rain, from which the formation of organic life is in principle possible.
"Titanium could give us the ability to detect life in an unfamiliar form that can exist not only in aqueous solutions, but also in hydrocarbon solvents," said Elizabeth Turtle, planetary scientist at the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University.
The study is accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research.