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Titan Rich in Carbons That Gave Life to Earth --NASA

Thu Oct 28, 5:53 PM ET
Science - Reuters
By Gina Keating

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Saturn's mysterious moon Titan appears to have an environment rich in the carbon-based molecules that spawned life on Earth and winds that etched streaks into its icy surface, NASA scientists said on Thursday.

Most exciting to scientists who hoped to unlock the origins of life by studying chemical reactions in Titan's soil and atmosphere were apparent signs of large amounts of a sort of primordial slush on its frozen surface.

"On early Earth there was organic material and something happened to those molecules that gave rise to life," scientist Jonathan Lunine said. "We had to find a place elsewhere in the system where that process is being replicated ... and it seems to be happening on Titan."

Images returned by the spaceship Cassini also suggested "an enormous amount of geology going on" on Titan including past eruptions of water-vapor-spewing volcanoes and "eggshell cracking" on its surface, Lunine said.

During a 44-hour flyby that ended on Tuesday, Cassini collected hundreds of images and radar data that pierced the veil of smog surrounding Titan for the first time.

The radar images showed streaks that resembled lava flows on Venus, triangular upthrusts that could be rocks, and what could be a chain of frozen lakes containing organic matter, JPL director Charles Elachi, who heads the radar team, said.

The radar data, covering just 1 percent of Titan's surface, also showed a deep surface layer of something that appears to be organic material rather than a rocky face, Elachi said.

"We are seeing a place that is alive ... geologically speaking," Elachi said. "We have read a couple of pages of the mystery book."

Although Titan's equatorial temperature stays far below freezing, the water ice at its core may be mixed with ammonia, whose lower freezing point may allow it to thaw and flow across the moon's surface in volcanic eruptions, scientists said.

The resulting streaks and flows observed around Titan's midsection also could have been caused by the movement of its heavy atmosphere, scientists said.

Cassini, which carries a piggyback probe called Huygens, is expected to fly by Titan 44 more times during its four-year mission to explore Saturn and its rings and moon.

In January, Huygens will parachute to Titan's surface to take readings of its dense atmosphere and soil.

The $3-billion mission, launched in 1997, is a joint project of NASA and the European and Italian
space agencies.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=570&e=14&u=/nm/space_cassini_dc