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The basic ingredients of life might exist in Titan’s atmosphere

Big news! In a simulation of the upper atmosphere of Titan at about 600 miles altitude, scientists have discovered the basic ingredients of life are quickly synthesized when exposed to the kind of hard radiation found there. Key quote from the press release, issued today at the 42nd meeting of the AAS Division for Planetary Sciences:

The molecules discovered include the five nucleotide bases used by life on Earth (cytosine, adenine, thymine, guanine and uracil) and the two smallest amino acids, glycine and alanine.

For those who don’t remember their high school biology, these nucleotides are the building blocks of DNA.

The abstract of the scientist’s work can be found here.

What the scientists did was recreate the basic ingredients of Titan’s upper atmosphere, comprised of nitrogen, methane and carbon monoxide. Cassini data has shown that within this atmosphere are very large molecules, as yet unidentified.

The scientists then bathed their recreation in the kind of intense radiation expected at that altitude, and amazingly produced the complex organic molecules that are basic to life. Moreover, the experiment was the first to produce these complex molecules without the presence of water, something that scientists have previously thought was required. These results suggest that in addition to forming in the oceans, life could also form in the upper atmospheres of planets.

This result also suggests strongly that it is incredibly easy to produce the basic building blocks of life, almost anywhere in the universe where organic molecules are present.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

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