A Crucial Ingredient for Life on Saturn's Largest Moon
Scientists have confirmed the existence of a molecule that potentially could form cell-like membranes on Titan.
When Voyager 1 flew by Saturn and its moons in 1980, it found a thick, orange-brown atmosphere around Titan, the largest moon of the group. The spacecraft’s imaging instruments couldn’t penetrate the atmosphere, but its spectrometers detected a that are also found on Earth: mostly nitrogen, but also hints of hydrogen, as well as complex organic compounds like ethane, propane, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and many others. The Huygens to include propylene, a chemical used in household plastics on Earth, and hydrogen cyanide, an extremely poisonous compound.
