Titan could host building blocks of alien cells

• Autores: Leah Crane
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3137, 2017, pág. 10
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Saturn's largest moon is looking more promising for life. For the first time, the building blocks of possible cell membranes have been detected in Titan's atmosphere--along with potential seeds of cell machinery these membranes could help grow. On Earth, cells are packets of mostly water surrounded by thin membranes made of lipids. Neither of these would fare well on Titan. It is far too cold for liquid water, with average surface temperatures of -149°C. And its seas are made of liquid methane, in which lipid membranes couldn't develop. Maybe life on Titan could be made of different stuff. Maureen Palmer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and her colleagues detected traces of vinyl cyanide in Titan's nitrogen atmosphere. A 2015 study found this chemical is good at forming the stable, flexible structures needed to build a type of cell membrane