Scientists Say Saturn Moon Like 'Early Earth'

Scientists Say Saturn Moon Like 'Early Earth'

news.sky.com

Although it is millions of miles away from us, planet-sized Titan also has choking smog and flash floods - just like Earth.

"It really is surprising how closely Titan's surface resembles Earth's," said planetary geologist Rosaly Lopes, from Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), in California.

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Is there a possibility that this well known moon, Titan, in our solar system has the possibility to harbor life? Well that's not too far off the radar as geologists have stated and pondered, and still are pondering, over the question on whether or not the moon which orbits our beloved gas giant Saturn, if its chemical processes support a prebiotic chemistry similar to that under which life evolved on earth?

Although the chemical compounds and high levels of gases, lethal to any known life found here on earth, and temperatures where water cannot exist except in the form of solid ice rock; the planets similarity to our own is actually quite astonishing. It doesn't take a genius to figure out this is a very significant step in our space exploration program and the implications of this find are quite far reaching.

Time will only tell what important discoveries can be made from this satellite orbiting Saturn. The possibility to study the similarities and differences of Titan's evolution time line compared to Earth's in the not too distant future is exciting to say the least and will be heralded quite boldly among scientists across many different fields.

news.sky.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 11-8-2009 by born2BWild]

The chances are that there is bacterial life on Titan. Any planet to have liquid, no matter how "dangerous" or toxic, is bound to have some extreamaphobes of some kind. Will be fascinating to see what research will come from this, but sadly i think that NASA will be focusing on finding life on Mars for a fair few decades before they try to send a probe to Titan :<

reply to post by Trolloks


There should be inteligent beings there, since it was created by the same time as earth, plenty of time to evolve, right?
Or hasn't the lightning started of eny thing up there ??