Is Life Forming on Saturns Moon Titan?
Scientists at University College London made an unexpected discovery while they were examining information sent back to Earth from the Cassini spacecraft. They have discovered the presence of heavy negative ions in Titan’s upper atmosphere. Titan is the largest of Saturn’s moons. These types of particles have the ability to be the organic building blocks of more complicated molecules.
in Titan’s upper atmosphere. Titan is the largest of Saturn’s moons. These types of particles have the ability to be the organic building blocks of more complicated molecules. This is one thing they did not expect to see due to the fact that the chemical composition of Titan’s atmosphere does not have nay oxygen and is made up of mostly nitrogen and methane. They have been able to confirm their findings on a total of 16 different encounters between the space craft and the atmosphere. There is one instrument on Cassini that has been able to provide the information and that is and electron spectrometer which gives them the ability to spot negative ions that have 10,000 times is mass of hydrogen. This is an important discovery because when additional rings of carbon build up on the negative ions, they form a molecule known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and it is these molecules that are believed to be necessary for the formation of the earliest types of lifeforms. This finding gave
