Hopes for life inside bubbles on Titan have deflated.
Oceans of liquid methane and ethane on Saturn’s biggest moon may not support the formation of cell-like spheres called azotosomes, researchers report March 11 in Science Advances.
Titan doesn’t have liquid water and is so cold that membranes like those that encase cells and organelles in Earth organisms would freeze and shatter there. That would normally exclude the moon as a likely place for life. But in 2015, some computer simulations suggested that a component of synthetic rubber called vinyl cyanide, or acrylonitrile, could make azotosomes in liquid methane. If true, that might mean that life on Titan is possible