fun interdisciplinary work:

Cornell chemical engineers and astronomers offer a template for life that could thrive in a harsh, cold world – specifically Titan, the giant moon of Saturn. Their theorized cell membrane, composed of small organic nitrogen compounds and capable of functioning in liquid methane temperatures of 292 degrees below zero

2022-12-02: The cosmic significance of life on Titan

Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, has a surface temperature of 94 degrees Kelvin above absolute zero, about a third of Earth’s. Titan is located 9.5x farther than the Earth-Sun separation and the surface temperature of Solar system objects declines roughly as the square-root of their distance from the Sun.

Coincidentally, 94 degrees was the temperature of the cosmic microwave background 100ma after the Big Bang when the first generation of stars formed. An object like Titan forming out of gas enriched by heavy elements from the first supernovae, would have had this surface temperature irrespective of its distance from a star. The bath of cosmic radiation would have kept the object warm for 10s of millions of years, sufficiently long for primitive forms of life to emerge on it.

This coincidence of temperatures raises the fascinating possibility of testing how early life could have arisen in the Universe by studying Titan. The question of whether Titan hosts life has cosmic implications. It could unravel the roots of Life in the Cosmos

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