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Move, Enceladus: A new study suggests that Saturn's largest moon, Titan, has all the ingredients to produce life as we know it.
Using data from the retired Cbadini spacecraft, a team of researchers examined the icy expanse. Under the direction of Catherine Neish, a global crater scientist specializing in impact craters at the University of Western Ontario, the group discovered that when exposed to liquid water, Organic molecules like those of Titan produce a range of concentrations. biomolecules, including amino acids.
"Titan thus provides a natural laboratory for studying the products of prebiotic chemistry", according to an article published in the journal Astrobiology .
The mysterious surface of the orb composed mainly of water ice and rocky material clocks at an icy temperature of -300 ℉, which, as pointed out [19659004] Astrobiology Magazine is too cold for biochemical reactions to occur
Even though methane lakes seem to be the obvious choice, Neish & Co. turned to craters: Sinlap (70 miles in diameter), Selk ( 90 km). ), Menrva (244 miles) in particular
"We determine that the best sites to identify biological molecules are cast deposits from the impact on the soil of large craters of fresh impact," writes the team, referring to the "ideal lander" for the lunar study would be able to "precision targeting."
However, not everyone is convinced by these newly identified targets. David Grinspoon, principal investigator at the Planetary Science Institute, will not use these results to guide our next mission to Titan.
"He's premature," he told the magazine, advocating more research "to characterize a range of environments."
NASA just released a stunning six-image portrait of Titan (photo), with mosaics built using 13 years of data collected by Cbadini's VIMS tool (Visual Infrared Mapping Spectrometer).
Last month, Frank Postberg and Nozair Khawaja of the University of Heidelberg revealed intricate organic molecules that sprang from the icy surface of Enceladus, one of the brightest objects of our solar system
. A team of badysts has identified fragments of rare complex molecules that, along with liquid water and hydrothermal activity, suggest that Enceladus' ocean could be livable.
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