Life On Titan Explained

Is there life on Titan?

Titan is the 10th largest celestial object in our Solar System. You’d think that the planets would occupy all of the top spots, but Titan is actually larger than both Mercury and Pluto (opinions on Pluto’s planet status notwithstanding).

Despite being a moon to the planet Saturn, Titan is actually closer to a planet in terms of its surface. There’s an atmosphere, it rains liquid onto the surface, and there’s even water. Of course, the major differences between Titan and Earth is that A, Titan possesses an atmosphere made of primarily methane rather than oxygen, and B, it’s unimaginably cold. Water freezes so hard on Titan, it’s got the strength of Earthly bedrock. There’s no way a place like this could sustain life, right? Well, not quite.

Titan’s atmosphere may seem inhospitable now, but it’s actually quite similar to a primordial Earth. Our blue ball used to have methane for days and was also crazy cold, and yet here we stand, living and breathing. While it probably won’t happen in our lifetime, Titan’s similarity to how Earth used to be makes scientists wonder if life could appear on its surface someday. It certainly wouldn’t be the strangest thing to happen in the universe. The strangest thing to happen in the universe would probably be, well, the universe. Or maybe Twinkies. One of those.

Author: Tom Jacobs

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