Here's a link to the NASA webpage where you can find a discussion of new discoveries on Titan, one of Saturn's moons. It's not little green men, but a pattern in the distribution of the chemicals hydrogen and acetylene that suggests something might actually be consuming them. Life isn't the only possible explanation, but the data apparently fit quite well with a theory of how "methane-based life" might function.
Interesting stuff; check it out.
Very exciting because of the possibility of life (and if both Earth and Titan have had a Genesis event, what does that say for the odds of life on all those extrasolar worlds?).
ReplyDeleteAnd great for me personally, because I needed some life-supporting-but-utterly-non-Earthly-life-supporting chemical combinations to finish a story I'm working on. Talk about timing!
Yes, indeed, David. Certainly great fodder for stories, even if it comes to naught. I'll bring your attention also to the alternate theoretical chemical combinations used by Mike Flynn in his Oct. 2009 Analog story, "Where the Winds are All Asleep." He had a great, elaborated system for silicon-based life.
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