Using both science and imagination, chemical engineers and astronomers have come up with a template for life on Titan, the giant moon of Saturn.
Although liquid water is a requirement for life on Earth, other, much colder worlds, would require life to exist beyond the bounds of water-based chemistry.
A planetary body awash with seas not of water, but of liquid methane, Titan could harbor methane-based, oxygen-free cells that metabolize, reproduce, and do everything life on Earth does.
The team’s theorized cell membrane, composed of small organic nitrogen compounds and capable of functioning in liquid methane temperatures of 292 degrees below zero, appears in Science Advances.
Chemical engineers and astronomers have come up with a template for life on Titan.
