I'm an award-winning science journalist and author of 'Distant Wanderers: the Search for Planets Beyond the Solar System.' I primarily cover aerospace and astronomy.
Of all the icy moons of Saturn and Jupiter, Saturn ’s moon of Titan is thought to be the most like our very early earth. One reason is that because aside from earth, Titan has the richest organic chemistry of any other known body in our solar system.
We know that there's thousands upon thousands of different complex molecules that are made by reactions mostly induced by sunlight on the methane, Conor Nixon, a planetary scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, told me recently in Graz, Austria.Titan is the only moon that we know of in our solar system that has a dense, unstable atmosphere, says Nixon. Titan may also have a water ocean deep inside that may provide an environment that is hospitable for life, he says.
The methane that's evaporated rises until it gets about 10 to 15 km above the surface, it then cools and rains out in droplets, says Nixon. So, the question remains how Titan maintains its thick atmosphere over timescales of billions of years and why other such icy moons appear to only have thin exospheres. Could Titan’s atmosphere be the key to the sort of rich chemistry that evolves into molecules that qualify as precursors of life? That’s one of the main drivers for NASA’s next robotic mission to the planet.
Titan Dragonfly NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
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