* . *
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Monday, August 4, 2025
Earth-News
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Exclusive | Fox Takes Stake in IndyCar Owner Penske Entertainment – The Wall Street Journal

    Exclusive | Fox Takes Stake in IndyCar Owner Penske Entertainment – The Wall Street Journal

    Go-to entertainment: why gaming was made for the toilet – The Guardian

    Why Gaming Is the Ultimate Way to Pass Time in the Bathroom

    Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra takes the Lollapalooza stage – Yahoo Home

    Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra takes the Lollapalooza stage – Yahoo Home

    Sens. Blackburn, Warnock introduce CREATE Act to provide tax relief to music creators – Yahoo Home

    Sens. Blackburn and Warnock Launch CREATE Act to Deliver Tax Relief for Music Creators

    That’s (Political) Entertainment: When Theatre Meets Politics

    Future Script: How Generative AI Is Changing Collective Bargaining in the Entertainment Industry – Jackson Lewis

    Future Script: How Generative AI Is Transforming Collective Bargaining in Entertainment

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Credo Technology: Wiring The AI Revolution (NASDAQ:CRDO) – Seeking Alpha

    Credo Technology: Driving the Next Wave of AI Innovation

    Microsoft Seeks to Extend Access to OpenAI Technology – PYMNTS.com

    Microsoft Aims to Broaden Access to OpenAI Technology

    Livonia police use grappler technology to stop drunk driver – ClickOnDetroit | WDIV Local 4

    Livonia Police Deploy Grappler Technology to Safely Stop Drunk Driver

    Emory orthopaedic surgeons use robotic technology to transform knee replacement surgery – Emory News Center

    How Robotic Technology is Revolutionizing Knee Replacement Surgery

    Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp (CTSH) Q2 2025 Earnings Call Highlights: Strong Revenue … – Yahoo.co

    Cognizant Q2 2025 Earnings: Impressive Revenue Growth and Key Takeaways

    Revving Up The U.S. Technology Engine – Forbes

    Revving Up The U.S. Technology Engine – Forbes

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Exclusive | Fox Takes Stake in IndyCar Owner Penske Entertainment – The Wall Street Journal

    Exclusive | Fox Takes Stake in IndyCar Owner Penske Entertainment – The Wall Street Journal

    Go-to entertainment: why gaming was made for the toilet – The Guardian

    Why Gaming Is the Ultimate Way to Pass Time in the Bathroom

    Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra takes the Lollapalooza stage – Yahoo Home

    Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra takes the Lollapalooza stage – Yahoo Home

    Sens. Blackburn, Warnock introduce CREATE Act to provide tax relief to music creators – Yahoo Home

    Sens. Blackburn and Warnock Launch CREATE Act to Deliver Tax Relief for Music Creators

    That’s (Political) Entertainment: When Theatre Meets Politics

    Future Script: How Generative AI Is Changing Collective Bargaining in the Entertainment Industry – Jackson Lewis

    Future Script: How Generative AI Is Transforming Collective Bargaining in Entertainment

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Credo Technology: Wiring The AI Revolution (NASDAQ:CRDO) – Seeking Alpha

    Credo Technology: Driving the Next Wave of AI Innovation

    Microsoft Seeks to Extend Access to OpenAI Technology – PYMNTS.com

    Microsoft Aims to Broaden Access to OpenAI Technology

    Livonia police use grappler technology to stop drunk driver – ClickOnDetroit | WDIV Local 4

    Livonia Police Deploy Grappler Technology to Safely Stop Drunk Driver

    Emory orthopaedic surgeons use robotic technology to transform knee replacement surgery – Emory News Center

    How Robotic Technology is Revolutionizing Knee Replacement Surgery

    Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp (CTSH) Q2 2025 Earnings Call Highlights: Strong Revenue … – Yahoo.co

    Cognizant Q2 2025 Earnings: Impressive Revenue Growth and Key Takeaways

    Revving Up The U.S. Technology Engine – Forbes

    Revving Up The U.S. Technology Engine – Forbes

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
Earth-News
No Result
View All Result
Home Science

Saturn’s ocean moon Titan may not be able to support life after all

February 16, 2024
in Science
Saturn’s ocean moon Titan may not be able to support life after all
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

saturn hangs huge, the shadows of its rings striping its lower half. a moon hangs before the giant's body, sliced by the thin line of rings behind.

Titan is seen here as it orbits Saturn.
(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)

Titan’s underground ocean, and similar oceans inside other icy moons in the outer solar system, may lack the organic chemistry necessary for life, according to new astrobiological research.

Titan is Saturn’s largest moon, and the second largest moon in the entire solar system. It’s famous for being shrouded in a smog of petrochemicals and for possessing a veritable soup of organic molecules — molecules that contain carbon — on its surface. Yet, despite all this fascinating chemistry, Titan is cold. Very cold. It has surface temperatures no warmer than –179 degrees Celsius (–290 degrees Fahrenheit). And in these frigid conditions, chemical reactions for life progress very slowly.

However, deep underground where it’s warmer — the exact depth is not certain, but estimates suggest it’s on the order of 100 kilometers (62 miles) — a liquid ocean with a volume 12 times that of Earth’s oceans combined is thought to exist. Similar oceans inhabit the interiors of Titan’s fellow Saturnian moon Enceladus, and Jupiter’s moons Europa and Ganymede. 

Related: Subsurface ocean tides on Saturn’s moon Titan are influenced by its icy crust

And where there is liquid water, there could be life. Right? Not so fast, says Catherine Neish of Western University in Ontario, Canada. 

A planetary scientist, Neish led an international team that challenged the assumption Titan’s ocean, and indeed the oceans of other icy moons, could be habitable.

The researchers worked on the basis that, for Titan’s ocean to be habitable, a large supply of organic molecules from the surface must be able to physically reach the ocean in order to facilitate prebiotic chemistry that can produce and feed life.

The route for this organic material to reach the ocean is via comet impacts. Such impacts can melt surface ice, creating a pool of liquid water filled with organic molecules. Because liquid water is denser than ice, it sinks. But, Neish’s modeling found that the rate of impacts is not high enough for sufficient organic material to reach Titan’s ocean.

a dark orange/brown planet is cut open to show different layers.

A diagram showing the interior of Saturn’s moon diagram, including its deep ocean.  (Image credit: A. D. Fortes/UCL/STFC)

For example, Neish’s team estimates only about 7,500 kilograms (16,534 pounds) of the simplest amino acid, glycine, reaches Titan’s ocean every year. It may sound like a lot, but that’s equivalent to the mass of one male African elephant spread across an ocean with a dozen times the volume of Earth’s oceans. If you’ll excuse the pun, it’s barely a drop in the ocean.

“We assumed that the majority of melt deposits — 65% — would sink all the way to the ocean,” Neish told Space.com. “Recent modeling work suggests that this is very likely an overestimate, but even in this most optimistic scenario, there is not enough organics moving into Titan’s ocean to support life there.”

There may be other possibilities. On Europa, where there are very few organic molecules on the surface, it is postulated that hydrothermal vents may exist on the seafloor where the ocean comes into contact with the moon’s rocky core. These vents would spew all kinds of molecules and trigger complex chemical reactions that could support life. Further evidence for carbon in Europa’s ocean has been discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope. The JWST identified carbon dioxide that has welled up from the ocean onto Europa’s surface.

So, could the same happen on Titan, with organic material coming from the moon’s interior, rather than its surface?

a long, silver chrome drone with six body-level propellers resembles a dragonfly. it flies over a pink/tan sandy dune landscape.

An artist’s impression of Dragonfly, which is a ‘quad-copter’ that will head to Saturn’s moon Titan in 2028  (Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben)

Neish doesn’t rule it out, saying that colleagues such as Kelly Miller at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, are investigating the possibility — but Neish does highlight one particular caveat.

“One concern that has come up is whether the organics sourced from the interior would be useful for life,” she said. “We think they may be primarily aromatic compounds, and it is difficult to form biomolecules — such as amino acids — from such compounds.”

While we are still some ways away from being able to probe the oceans of these icy moons directly to say for certain whether they contain life or not, Neish’s research does raise some promising opportunities for NASA’s Dragonfly mission to Titan, on which Neish is a co-investigator.

Dragonfly is a helicopter mission, inspired in part by the Ingenuity Mars helicopter, which is planned to launch in 2028 for arrival on Titan in 2034. It will explore the moon from the air, touching down to take samples for analysis. If Neish’s work is correct, it’d mean there could be many impact sites on the surface where liquid water mixed with organics, possibly sparking some complex chemistry before freezing again and sinking. By studying these sites, scientists could learn more about the prebiotic chemistry that went all the way to forming life on Earth.

The findings from Neish’s team were published on 2nd February in the journal Astrobiology.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!

Keith Cooper is a freelance science journalist and editor in the United Kingdom, and has a degree in physics and astrophysics from the University of Manchester. He’s the author of “The Contact Paradox: Challenging Our Assumptions in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence” (Bloomsbury Sigma, 2020) and has written articles on astronomy, space, physics and astrobiology for a multitude of magazines and websites.

>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : Space.com – https://www.space.com/titan-ocean-saturn-moon-inhospitable-life-earth-study

Tags: OceanSaturn'sscience
Previous Post

China eyes May 2024 launch for 1st-ever lunar sample-return mission to moon’s far side

Next Post

Save 30% on the absolutely massive Lego Marvel Hulkbuster

New rule would expand tug escort requirements, reduce risk of oil spills in Puget Sound – Washington State Department of Ecology (.gov)

New Rule Strengthens Tug Escort Requirements to Drastically Reduce Oil Spill Risks in Puget Sound

August 4, 2025
100 years ago, scientists thought we’d be eating food made from air – Popular Science

A Century Ago, Scientists Predicted We’d Be Eating Food Made from Air

August 4, 2025
Maserati and Sparco Launch Lifestyle Capsule Inspired by Motorsport Heritage – stupidDOPE

Maserati and Sparco Launch Lifestyle Capsule Inspired by Motorsport Heritage – stupidDOPE

August 4, 2025
Fox News Flash top entertainment headlines of the week – Fox News

Top Entertainment Headlines You Can’t Miss This Week

August 4, 2025
How Is the Economy Doing Right Now? – NerdWallet

What’s Really Going On with the Economy Right Now?

August 4, 2025
Exclusive | Fox Takes Stake in IndyCar Owner Penske Entertainment – The Wall Street Journal

Exclusive | Fox Takes Stake in IndyCar Owner Penske Entertainment – The Wall Street Journal

August 4, 2025
At Washington Health Care Authority, workers are warned of layoffs – Washington State Standard

Washington Health Care Authority Alerts Employees of Potential Layoffs

August 4, 2025
NYPD program allowed slain officer to moonlight as private security guard – Spectrum News NY1

NYPD program allowed slain officer to moonlight as private security guard – Spectrum News NY1

August 4, 2025
Credo Technology: Wiring The AI Revolution (NASDAQ:CRDO) – Seeking Alpha

Credo Technology: Driving the Next Wave of AI Innovation

August 3, 2025
Judge Halts Stephen F. Austin’s Female Sports Cuts Amid Title IX Suit – Sportico.com

Judge Halts Stephen F. Austin’s Female Sports Cuts Amid Title IX Suit – Sportico.com

August 3, 2025

Categories

Archives

August 2025
MTWTFSS
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031
« Jul    
Earth-News.info

The Earth News is an independent English-language daily published Website from all around the World News

Browse by Category

  • Business (20,132)
  • Ecology (753)
  • Economy (778)
  • Entertainment (21,655)
  • General (16,273)
  • Health (9,815)
  • Lifestyle (786)
  • News (22,149)
  • People (777)
  • Politics (787)
  • Science (15,991)
  • Sports (21,273)
  • Technology (15,755)
  • World (759)

Recent News

New rule would expand tug escort requirements, reduce risk of oil spills in Puget Sound – Washington State Department of Ecology (.gov)

New Rule Strengthens Tug Escort Requirements to Drastically Reduce Oil Spill Risks in Puget Sound

August 4, 2025
100 years ago, scientists thought we’d be eating food made from air – Popular Science

A Century Ago, Scientists Predicted We’d Be Eating Food Made from Air

August 4, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

Go to mobile version