Titan alien lakes may be creating primitive forms of life

A new study driven by a team of NASA researchers has shown that cell-like compartments, called vesicles, may naturally form in the lakes of Titan, the moon of Saturn.

Titan is the unique worldbeyond the earth, known to have liquid on the surface. However, Titan’s lakes and seas contain no water, but liquid hydrocarbonslike ethane and methane.

On earth, it is believed that liquid water has been essential to the origin of life as we know it.

Over the years, many astrobiologists have been questioned whether Titan fluids can also provide an environment conducive to the formation of the molecules necessary for life-either as we know it, or perhaps a different way.

A new one, driven by a team of NASA researchers and recently published in the International Journal of Astrobiology, describes a process by which stable vesicles may form In Titan, based on current knowledge about the atmosphere and chemistry of this moon.

The formation of such compartments is an important step in creating precursors of vivid (or protocélli) cells.

The process involves called molecules amphifilicthat can be self-organized in vesicles under appropriate conditions. On Earth, these polar molecules have two parts: a hydrophobic end (that “is afraid” of the water) and a hydrophilic end (that “likes” the water).

When they are in water, they group and form spheres similar to soap bubbles: The hydrophilic part is turned outinteracting with water, and the hydrophobic part is protected inside the sphere.

Under certain conditions, Two layers can be formedcreating a cell -like structurewith a two -member membrane that ends a water bag inside. In the case of Titan, the investigators had to consider aradically different of the primitive land.

Titan is the largest Saturn moon and the second largest in the solar system. It is also the only moon in the solar system with a substantial atmosphere.

Titan’s enhanced and golden atmosphere kept this world wrapped in mystery for much of human history. However, when NASA arrived in Saturn in 2004, our Titan vision changed forever.

Thanks to Cassini, we now know that Titan has a complex meteorological cycle that still today actively influences its surface. Most of the titan atmosphere is composed of nitrogen, but there is also a significant amount of methane (ch₄).

This methane form clouds and rainwhich fall on the surface, causing erosion and digging rivers beds, eventually filling lakes and seas. Subsequently, the liquid evaporates with sunlight, forming clouds again.

This atmospheric activity allows them to occur Complex chemical reactions. Solar energy breaks molecules such as methane, whose fragments recombine into more complex organic molecules.

Many astrobiologists believe that this chemistry can teach us as if formed and evolved, on the primitive land, the molecules necessary for the emergence of life.

The new study analyzed as vesicles can form Under cold conditions of Titan hydrocarbones and seas, focusing on splashing droplets thrown by the impact of rain.

In Titan, both droplets and liquid surface can be coated with layers of amphyl molecules. If a droplet falls into a lake, the two layers of amphphilic They are and form a double layer gallbladder (or bicamada), involving the original droplet.

Over time, many of these vesicles they would spread across the surfaceinteracting and competing in an evolutionary process that could give rise to primitive protolars.

If this training way is confirmed, it would increase our understanding of the conditions under which life can emerge.

“The existence of any vesicles in Titan would demonstrate an increase in order and complexity, which are necessary conditions for the origin of life“, He explains Conor Nixonof the Goddard Space Flight Center in a NASA.

“We are enthusiastic about these new ideas because they can open new lines of research in Titan and perhaps change the way we are looking for life on this moon in the future,” concludes Nixon.