Posted: 3/10/2015
Trigger
Just read “Titan Could Host Life "Not As We Know It" Saturn's moon Titan is too cold for cell membranes to form as they do on Earth. But researchers have come up with a cell membrane that could exist on Titan.”. Here is another article about it from Scientific American. Finally, some scientists come to their senses that extraterrestrial life may not be anything like we know it.
A Hypothetical
To quote from above article: “Saturn's largest moon, Titan, has a thick atmosphere. Clouds. Complex organic molecules. NASA has called it "one of the most Earth-like worlds we have found to date." … "It's awfully cold down there. It's about 94 degrees Kelvin. … one of the most basic biological structures, the cell membrane, can't exist. Because to form, the oily membranes depend on the presence of liquid water. … Titan does have plenty of liquid … but it's liquid methane. …. computer models to determine whether any molecules on Titan might mimic the membrane-forming compounds here on Earth. Based on a catalogue of organics observed by NASA's Cassini mission, they found a candidate: acrylonitrile. Its internal electrical charge distribution would allow it to self-assemble into membranes, just like phospholipids do here on Earth. It's similarly flexible and stable. And there's a lot of it on Titan.”
Caveat: Potential membranes are not living cells or anything resembling life.
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