Nov 04, 2020 06:00:00

'Molecules that can be the origin of life' are discovered in the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan

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Titan ' is the largest of the 62 Saturn moons and the only satellite in the solar system with an abundant atmosphere. A team of NASA scientists has announced that they have discovered 'potentially life-forming carbon compounds' in Titan's atmosphere.

Detection of Cyclopropenylidene on Titan with ALMA --IOPscience
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/abb679

'Weird' Molecule Discovered in Titan's Atmosphere | NASA
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/nasa-scientists-discover-a-weird-molecule-in-titan-s-atmosphere/

Most of Titan's atmosphere is made up of nitrogen and methane. In addition, Titan's atmospheric pressure is about 1.45 times that of the earth, the atmospheric density is four times that of the earth, and it has been confirmed that there are lakes and rivers, rain and clouds, and a sea of salt water underground, so 2.5 billion It is said to be in an environment relatively close to the earth a year ago.

A team of NASA scientists were investigating the atmospheric composition of Titan with the

ALMA telescope in northern Chile, and found a substance called cyclopropenilidene (C ₃ H ₂ ), a cyclic hydrocarbon, in the spectrum . thing. 'When I discovered the traces of cyclopropeniliden, I first thought,'It's a really unexpected analysis,'' said Connor Nixon, a planetary scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Is talking about.

Since it was the first time that a cyclic hydrocarbon other than benzene was found in Titan's atmosphere, Nixon had no similar data before, or was sent by the Saturn probe Cassini from 2004 to 2017. He said he reconfirmed the data he received. As a result, traces of cyclopropenilidene were found in the mass spectrometer data from around Titan.

According to Nixon, it is not clear why cyclopropenilidene is present in Titan's atmosphere and why cyclopropenilidene is not detected in the atmosphere of other celestial bodies. 'It's important to discover cyclopropeniliden in Titan's atmosphere, because this cyclopropenilidene can be part of the

nucleobases of DNA and RNA, which are the medium of genetic information,' Nixon said. I am commenting.

Melissa Trainer, Deputy Chief Researcher of the mission ' Dragonfly ' to send landers to Titan in 2026, said, 'Titan is a laboratory that can observe chemical reactions similar to the ancient Earth where life was born. Masu '' In Dragonfly, we plan to look for molecules larger than cyclopropenilidene, but to understand the scientific reaction that 'complex organic molecules are formed and fall on the surface of the earth', first of all, the atmosphere. You need to know what's going on inside. '