4 ms·
These are great points. It would be like if a race of flying / buoyant aliens studied Earth's upper atmosphere, and decided that it wasn't sufficient for life,
by RIMR 3y ago
These are great points. It would be like if a race of flying / buoyant aliens studied Earth's upper atmosphere, and decided that it wasn't sufficient for life, while ignoring that life isn't really found until you get to the surface, and most of that life is found under the surface.
There could be a habitable zone deep in Titan's oceans. I don't even know if "habitable" is the right word, because the concern seems greater to do with the genesis of life, not the sustainability of existing life that might have existed on Titan for millions of years already, from a time where perhaps conditions were very different from what they are today.
- margalabargala 3y agoTo be fair, the scientists that wrote the scientific article came to no such conclusion. The "most likely uninhabitable" thing is an invention of the popsci journalist whose article was linked, not something supported by the underlying journal article. The journal article asked the question "is the carbon transferred from Titan's surface to its ocean sufficient, on its own, to sustain a biosphere?" to which their answer is "probably not". It explicitly does not claim there are no other sources of carbon in the ocean, nor that Titan is "probably uninhabitable".