[ad_1]
Washington, DC, Jul 23 (PTI) After a study, big craters on Saturn's largest moon, Titan, are the best places to look for the bricks of life.
Using images and data from the spacecraft Cassini and Huygens probe, scientists led by Catherine Neish of the University of Western Ontario in Canada, set to zero on the best places to search for biological molecules on the surface of Titan.
Titan's surface has abundance of carbon-rich molecules (hydrocarbons) that have been shown to form amino acids, the building blocks of proteins needed for life, when exposed to water liquid in laboratory simulations.
However, Titan is far too cold for liquid water to be present on the surface. from Cassini, which has orbited Saturn for 13 years, has been able to scrutinize Titan's optically thick atmosphere, revealing the terrain of this enigmatic world.
The Cassini radar instrument unveiled lakes, dunes, mountains, river valleys ys, and not many craters, indicating that there are processes that resurface Titan and that fill or erode old craters.
The discovery & # 39; a world similar to Earth more than nine times its distance from the sun was monumental, [19659002Bienqueleslacsdeméthaneaientsembléêtrelechoixévidentpourrechercherdessignesdevieleschercheursontplutôttrouvéquelescratèresetlescryovolcans(régionsoùl'eauliquidejaillitsouslasurfaceglacéedeTitan)étaientlesdeuxendroitslesplusalléchants
promising to melt the ice of Titan's crust in the & # 39, liquid water, a necessary step to form complex biomolecules.
"When we mix tholins (organic products when simple mixtures of gases are subjected to cosmic radiation) with liquid water," said Morgan Cable of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the United States .
"So any place where there is liquid water on the surface of Titan or near its surface could generate the precursors to life – biomolecules – that would be important to life as we know it. know, and it's really exciting, "said Mr. Cable SAR SAR PTI
SAR
This is an unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India thread
[ad_2]Source link
