Reproducing a copy of it could unlock some of Space’s secrets. Frigid Titan is the only other world in our solar system dominated by organic molecules and with lakes and rivers.
Titan is Saturn’s icy moon and the only other world in our solar system dominated by organic molecules and furrowed by lakes and rivers. It also has a dense atmosphere, a seasonal climate and precipitation, similar to what happens on Earth. The difference is that its basins are full of methane and the rain would probably burn our skin. At the same time, the Saturn satellite could be a great starting point to look for signs of extraterrestrial life. A new experiment, led by researchers at Southern Methodist University, is trying to replicate Titan’s conditions in a test tube to try to analyze its environment.
Mimicking Saturn’s moon in a test tube
While NASA plans to launch a sort of “big drone” to Titan in 2027 with the Dragonfly mission, some scientists are trying to anticipate the possible results of direct observation by recreating the atmosphere of Saturn’s cold moon in a test tube, particularly the organic molecules it shares with our planet. “If we want to study minerals on Titan, we need to take a look at these common organic molecules,” explained Tomče Runčevski, lead author of the experiment presented at the fall meeting of the American Chemical Society, “but by looking at them through different eyes, through the prism of Titan.
Runčevski’s “Titan in a glass” experiment combined features of the Saturnian moon, such as its immersion temperatures and characteristic liquids, inside glass cylinders to which he added two molecules, acetonitrile and propionitrile, found in the lunar atmosphere. On Titan, these compounds are in the form of solid crystals that contain sequences of “polymorphs,” or variations in structure, that depend on temperature. The chemical composition is the same, but the way the chemicals bind is slightly different depending on how hot or cold it is.
The results of the experiments showed that the structural sequences of the two molecules changed, with the polymorphs stabilizing at both high and low temperatures. The properties of the compounds were also changed. Titan’s temperatures dropped as low as -290 degrees Fahrenheit. But this has not prevented the formation of high-temperature polymorphs. The hypothesis is that it’s not just temperature that influences Titan’s chemistry, and the newly identified properties of acetonitrile and propionitrile may also reopen questions about Earth’s chemistry.
In the meantime, another research study of Saturn’s rings has succeeded in observing what’s in the planet’s heart.
Stefania Bernardini