Excerpt from viralglobalnews.com
A group of scientists at Cornell University believe that Titan, one
of Saturn’s moons, may be a haven of life. However, it would not be in
the form that human beings know. Methane based life forms might live on
Titan, the scientists have said, after they created a model of an oxygen
free life form which would be able to thrive in the icy, unforgiving
conditions that Saturn’s moon offers.
They studied the various forms of cell membranes that exist on Earth,
which are made up of lipid bi-layer structures. The Cornell
scientists said such membranes would not be able to exist in
environments where liquid water could not be present, according to Design and Trend.
Titan has plenty of lakes filled with methane, so that means it might
not be habitable in the way that scientists had formerly described
habitability. However, Dr. James Stevenson and his team thinks that
contrarily structured membranes could offer the foundation for life to
exist on Saturn’s moon. The model they created used organic nitrogen
mixtures, so that the new structure could easily function on Titan in
the richness of the methane that exists in liquid form there.
Dr. Stevenson said it was Isaac Asimov, the celebrated sci-fi writer,
who first gave the rudimentary inspiration for the idea in the paper he
penned, which was called the Not as We Know It essay. It was
written about non-water-based life forms. Because Saturn’s moon is the
only known celestial form in the solar system to have naturally
occurring fluids on its surface, except for the Earth, the group of
scientists believe it to be a possible perfect foundation for life forms
to develop.
Dr. Paulette Clancy, who has helped lead the group, constructed an “azotosome.” It is comparable in name origin to liposome which comes from the Greek words lipos and soma. An azotosome comes from the French word for nitrogen. Therefore, the word is describing a nitrogen body.
Instead of trying to find alien life within the area that surrounds
the Sun where water exists in liquid form, the group decided to try and
imagine a new kind of cell, grounded on methane instead of water. Clancy
and the team were dumbfounded to find that this new projected model
presented an alike stability to the cell membranes already here on
Earth.
Dr. Clancy seemed very anxious to carry on the group’s work and find
out how such compounds would truly work in the methane atmosphere. Dr.
Jonathan Lunine, who is a top expert in Titan and also one of the
co-authors of the study, thinks that it might be possible in the future
to in fact test these theories by actually examing organic material from
Saturn’s moon. In the years to come, Dr. Lunine stated that probes
might be sent to Titan to gather the needed material by floating down on
the methane seas of the moon of Saturn.
The group discovered a compound they named acrylonitrile azotosome,
which appeared to show good stability. It had a strong barricade to
decomposition, and a suppleness that was similar to phospholipid
membranes that exist on Earth. Acrylonitrile is a poisonous, colorless,
liquid organic compound that is used in the production of acrylic fibers
and thermoplastics and it is present in Titan’s atmosphere as well.
They have written up about their discovery and what they believe to
be possible. The scientists’ paper was printed up in the journal Science Advances on Friday.
Source Article from http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AscensionEarth2012/~3/IatnSnPVLKw/scientists-believe-oxygen-free-methane.html
Scientists Believe Oxygen Free Methane Based Aliens Might Exist on Icy Saturn Moon Titan
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