Thursday, August 04, 2005

Hydrogen breathing microbial life on Saturn's moon

An amazing announcement is delayed for non-scientific reasons. Life has been found on Titan - the moon of Saturn. European Space Agency's Huygens found evidence of chemical signature of microbial life on Saturn's moon Titan. This just proves we are not alone, but that we have severe political, religious and strategic implications. Governments are debating on how to deal with the situation. There are skeptics who have doubts about this chemical signature of the methane-spewing life forms. No matter how small or primitive these life forms are, it just proves that life can exist beyond this planet.
The microbes in Titan breathe hydrogen rather than oxygen, and eat organic molecules drifting down from the upper atmosphere. Acetylene, ethane and more complex organic gunk known as tholins are the three food sources of these microbes. Ethane and tholins turn out to provide little more than the minimum energy requirements of methanogenic bacteria on Earth. The more tempting, high-calorie option is acetylene, yielding six times as much energy per mole as either ethane or tholins.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

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