The prospect of finding extraterrestrial life on Saturn’s largest moon “Titan” is less optimistic. A new study believes that Titan’s underground ocean is likely to be an uninhabitable environment, making it much less likely to find other life forms in the outer solar system.
Astronomers are interested in the four giant planets in the outer solar system, largely because many of the giant planets’ moons may have huge underground liquid water oceans. For example, Titan has a high probability of having an underground ocean with a volume 12 times larger than the Earth’s ocean. And because the Earth Life requires water, so when searching for extraterrestrial life, planets and moons containing large amounts of water are particularly interesting.
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Astrobiologist Catherine Neish’s team tried to use Titan surface impact crater data to quantify the amount of organic molecules transferred from Titan’s organic-rich surface to the underground ocean, and predict the flow rate of water carrying organic matter from Titan’s surface to the interior. They found that this The amount of organic matter transferred in this way is very small, no more than 7,500 kilograms of glycine (the simplest amino acid) per year.
Catherine Neish said that these most basic substances that make up the proteins of life are discharged into an ocean equivalent to 12 times the volume of the Earth’s oceans, which is simply not enough to sustain life.
Titan is already the icy satellite with the richest organic content in the entire solar system. If even its underground ocean is not suitable for life, then it will not be a good sign for other icy satellites, such as Europa, Europa, Ganymede, There is almost no carbon on the surface such as Enceladus, and it is even more difficult to have enough organic matter and water to nurture life.
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But we still have other hopes. Although there are very few organic molecules on the surface of Europa, there may be hot springs on the seabed, which will eject various molecules and trigger complex chemical reactions, thereby promoting the birth of life. The Webb Space Telescope has discovered further evidence of the existence of carbon in Europa’s underground ocean. It has also discovered that the carbon dioxide flowing from the underground ocean to the surface of Europa does this mean that organic matter can come from the interior of the satellite?
The Dragonfly unmanned helicopter, planned to be launched in 2026 and land on the surface of Titan in 2034, will further reveal more answers.
new paperPublished in the journal Astrobiology.
(Source of first picture:European Space Agency）
