Talk:Life on Titan

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Comments[edit]

Why is this here? It's just a copy of information already in the Titan article. Serendipodous 07:11, 26 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Here are four reasons...

1. Because the topic is notable in its own right. It is something both scientists and the public are talking about.

2. Because the main Titan article is getting seriously long. If a WP reader wants to know specifically about the question of life on Titan, should they have to scroll through all the other aspects to find what they want?

3. I had extra information to add, e.g. about the (now obsolete but historically interesting) hypothesis which expected Titan's surface to be almost as warm as Earth's, about the recent hypothesis of phosphane as a solvent for life, about how the June 2010 findings were reported in the UK Telegraph. Adding these points to the main Titan article would have made an already long article even longer. See Wikipedia:Article size

4. WP policy on Wikipedia:Abundance and redundancy states: "there is no bandwidth need to exclude material on the basis of its redundancy across articles. Ease of reading is facilitated by the inclusion of relevant material, rather than disinclusion." Kalidasa 777 (talk) 01:46, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Good job with the expanding. I'm cool now. Serendipodous 06:18, 29 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Findings suggesting surface life[edit]

Translations please? To me, it appears that we are saying that:

If there are methanogenic life-forms at the surface that are consuming hydrogen and acetylene, then these chemicals would be less abundant at the surface. And it looks like that is what is happening: hydrogen and acetylene are more abundant in the upper atmosphere than they are at the surface. This could be an indicator of life on Titan.

How is that? Kortoso (talk) 23:36, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a case of what we are saying, but of what has been said by planetary scientists such as Darrell Strobel and Chris McKay on the basis of data from the Cassini-Huygens mission. I'm not quite sure which part of the argument requires "translations" -- would you like to explain? One point made by Strobel is that given there is abundant hydrogen high in the atmosphere, but much less near the surface, the physics of diffusion result in a downward flow of hydrogen molecules, thus the levels of hydrogen near the surface and higher up would tend to equalize... unless some process near the surface is actively reducing the concentration of hydrogen. Kalidasa 777 (talk) 03:45, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"Translation" = "explanation in non-technical language". Kortoso (talk) 18:12, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I've just expanded and reworded the bit about Strobel's argument. Hope it is clearer now... Kalidasa 777 (talk) 23:17, 20 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Much better now, thanks! Kortoso (talk) 00:34, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Just found this recently: Methanotroph - could be at the other end of a putative Titan food chain. Kortoso (talk) 01:11, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not saying you're wrong. It's quite conceivable that Titan has organisms which consume methane, although the chemistry and thermodynamics would be different from here because Titan has fewer oxidizing molecules. But we can't talk about possible Titan methanotrophs in the article unless we can find discussion about them in existing published literature as per WP:Verifiability policy and WP:Reliable Source guidelines. Kalidasa 777 (talk) 23:27, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, of course I wasn't considering putting it into the article. Very interesting nonetheless, and thank you for the details. Kortoso (talk) 00:06, 23 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Titan is not only very interesting in itself, it also stimulates our interest in the different forms of life on Earth. Glad the details I mentioned are relevant to you. Thank you very much for all your feedback.Kalidasa 777 (talk) 21:51, 23 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Life Possible on Titan?[edit]

Copied from Talk:Titan (moon)#Life is not possible very easily on Titan - seems relevant here as well - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 03:08, 4 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Copied from Talk:Titan (moon)#Life is not possible very easily on Titan.

-Life is not possible very easily on Titan-

Lot's of money were invested by NASA to seek for water on titan but life is not possible as we imagine on titan. Read more: http://phys.org/news/2015-02-life-saturn-moon-titan.html [Note/added s/: Mjesfahani (talk) 01:06, 2 March 2015‎ (UTC)]

Perhaps this could go in the life on Titan article. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:44, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
This is an important result and should definitely be mentioned. As for 'searching for water on Titan', that has to be a subsurface ocean that rather likely exists. On the deep-frozen surface water is an ice and as hard as rock. --JorisvS (talk) 11:23, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
FWIW - interesting - yes - agreed - the noted news item seems worth a mention in the "Life on Titan" article - seems life is basically a chemical that can reproduce itself[1][2] (if interested, my NYT comment[3]) - this can begin, theoretically at least, with a single instance, somewhere in the Universe and, later (maybe much later?), be transported, by panspermia or related, to receptive host locations elsewhere to develop further - this seems most likely to me atm - the "primodial soup" as it were - is in the vastness of space itself somewhere, not locally - in this way - the host location itself is a secondary, and not a primary, starting point - otoh - life may begin locally, less likely imo, in a location in some de novo way (almost like spontaneous generation?) - and develop from there - seems some (much?) of our thinking about life on Earth - and life on Titan? - assumes such a local beginning - as before - this seems unlikely to me atm - nonetheless, the noted news item seems worth a mention in the "Life on Titan" article imo atm - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 13:12, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Luttermoser, Donald G. "ASTR-1020: Astronomy II Course Lecture Notes Section XII" (PDF). East Tennessee State University. Retrieved March 2, 2015.
  2. ^ Luttermoser, Donald G. (Spring 2008). "Physics 2028: Great Ideas in Science: The Exobiology Module" (PDF). East Tennessee State University. Retrieved March 2, 2015.
  3. ^ Bogdan, Dennis (December 2, 2012). "Comment - Life Thrives Throughout Universe?". New York Times. Retrieved March 2, 2015.

If you must include that PhysOrg paper, then describe the extent/limit of their work: a hypothetical model of a membrane analog. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 17:20, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

"Life is not possible very easily on Titan" needs to receive a better re-translation. The original from the phys.org article is "Life 'not as we know it' possible on Saturn's moon Titan"; in other words, life is possible on Titan, but it wouldn't follow our expectations.

Life on Venus?[edit]

what's that got to do with it? Kortoso (talk) 16:03, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Just as Life on Mars: they're articles discussing the possibility of life on those worlds. --JorisvS (talk) 19:26, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Please update with: "Detection of Cyclopropenylidene on Titan with ALMA"[edit]

Please add some information on this study to the article, probably to section #Formation of complex molecules and maybe also to Titan (moon). It's currently featured in 2020 in science like so:

NASA scientists announce the discovery of small amounts of unprotonated cyclopropenylidene – a possible precursor to more complex astrobiological compounds – in the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan via ALMA.[1][2]

--Prototyperspective (talk) 23:44, 3 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Crane, Leah. "Weird ring-shaped molecule on Titan could be a building block to life". New Scientist. Retrieved 9 November 2020.
  2. ^ Nixon, Conor A.; Thelen, Alexander E.; Cordiner, Martin A.; Kisiel, Zbigniew; Charnley, Steven B.; Molter, Edward M.; Serigano, Joseph; Irwin, Patrick G. J.; Teanby, Nicholas A.; Kuan, Yi-Jehng (15 October 2020). "Detection of Cyclopropenylidene on Titan with ALMA". The Astronomical Journal. 160 (5): 205. arXiv:2010.12743. Bibcode:2020AJ....160..205N. doi:10.3847/1538-3881/abb679. ISSN 1538-3881. S2CID 225067550. Retrieved 9 November 2020.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
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