Will our galactic overlords be Titanish?

There's some exciting—and potentially confusing—news coming out of the NASA's Cassini Saturn orbiter program. Two new papers have come out, both dealing with the possibility that alien life could be theoretically hanging out on Saturn's moon Titan.

This is the kind of research that easily sets hearts aflutter and space nerds to making high-pitched happy squealing sounds, so let's knock out one basic thing right off the bat: Nobody has discovered alien life. We have not found E.T. This is only a test of the emergency high-pitched happy squealing system.

That said, it probably wouldn't be remiss to clap your hands delightedly, like a little girl. As I said, nobody has found alien life, but they did find the sort of evidence that might suggest alien life is down there on the surface of Titan, waiting to be found. It's a little like walking up to a house and finding the front door open, and, inside, a T.V. stand that's missing a T.V. It's reasonable to assume the house might have been burglarized, but there are also other plausible explanations and you don't have enough evidence to know one way or the other.

It boils down to this: If you were observing the movement and composition of gases on Earth, you'd probably notice that oxygen has a tendency to "disappear" near our planet's surface. It's a tip-off that something is down here, breathing. Researchers have noticed a similar pattern on Titan, involving the disappearance of hydrogen at the moon's surface. At the same time, other researchers have also found a distinct lack of acetylene among the moon's natural hydrocarbons. Both these discoveries are important, because they fit with theoretical predictions made in 2005 about the kind of clues you'd find on a planet that was home to life forms that breathed hydrogen, ate acetylene and produced methane as a product of respiration the way we produce carbon dioxide.

Again, none of this is proof that Titan is teeming with weird life. But, if we want to find weird life, Titan may be a good place to start looking.

Let the inevitable "I, for one ..." jokes commence, anon!

New Scientist: Hints of life found on Saturn moon
Discovery News: Titan: Oasis for Life as we don't know it?
Space.com: Strange discovery on Titan leads to speculation of alien life

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

Maggie goes places and talks to people. Find out where she'll be speaking next.

MORE: Science

More at Boing Boing

Ants and Stars: Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic visit the Sardinia Radio Telescope in Italy

The Snowden Principle

Xopher

I think ‘Titanese’ is the correct term. Though of course it would be respectful to use their native term for themselves, which is ‘¬∀∠∝⌋⌊∇’; but that’s unpronounceable with human vocal apparatus (we don’t have any spinning mouth parts, and the electrical discharge indicated by ‘∝’ would be fatal to most humans).

As for landing on Titan…not worried. If it were Europa, now that’s a problem. We need to stay the hell away from Europa.
- Felton
  
  We need to stay the hell away from Europa.
  
  Wait, it’s 2010 now. Have we even gotten that message yet?
  - Xopher
    
    It’s just a reminder. Some of us have known for a long time that Europa is off limits!
Rob Beschizza

I know that it is unfashionable in the relevant circles, but I think it really should be “Titanic” :)
- Maggie Koerth-Baker
  
  I think you’ve just created an ethnic slur.
  - proletariat
    
    I think you’ve just created an ethnic slur.
    
    Yeah, Rob, T*tanic is their word. Only they can use it.
  - Felton
    
    Let’s see…Mars is the bringer of war, and Saturn is the bringer of old age. Couldn’t we find evidence of life on Venus, the bringer of peace, or Jupiter, the bringer of jollity?
- Anonymous
  
  In all honesty, I think the term is Titanian. Titanic means big, and Titanish means Titan-like.
Daedalus

“A technological race, expanding at 0.1 C, would take about a million years to colonize the galaxy. There’s been plenty of time for this to happen. Thus, the Fermi Paradox: where are they? No evidence has been discovered that suggests artificial structures anywhere in our Universe, apart from Earth.”

Personal pet theory: the inventing of things to fling ourselves into hostile environments like the pseudovacuum of interplanetary space is a uniquely homo sapiens evolutionary trait. Heck, it may be a uniquely western european cultural trait, since folks like the Hadza seem pretty happy with not doing much of that.

“The atmosphere is so thick and the gravity so low that humans could fly through it by flapping “wings” attached to their arms.”

I want to go to there.

“they are methane expelling (on the exhalation)”

This much is true about life everywhere: it farts. Some life does little else.
- Xopher
  
  This much is true about life everywhere: it farts. Some life does little else.
  
  Rush Limbaugh, for a famous example.
  - Maggie Koerth-Baker
    
    A lot of the weirdness of this world might be explained if Rush Limbaugh is actually an alien from the moon Titan.
velick

Winston Niles Rumfoord and Kazak?
- MrFox
  
  Well it surely is about time for the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent.
  - Gilbert Wham
    
    I attended for a while, but they were a bit too happy-clappy for me. I’m now an adherent of the Church of God the Maliciously Negligent.
freshacconci

Well, maybe we can be their overlords?
- Anonymous
  
  I agree. . . we can beat them to the punch on this one.
  
  We need a space armada, pronto!
- GeekMan
  
  I think that’s a certainty. We’ll be harvesting their methane, you see…
remmelt

I, for one, welcome our fart-breathing overlords.
- Curly
  
  Dude, they’re fart *eating*.
  - tizroc
    
    No Curly they are methane expelling (on the exhalation).. they eat Acetylene… (Theoretically)
maryn

“This is only a test of the emergency high-pitched happy squealing system.” Brava.
nanuq

I guess we can claim solidarity with out Titan(ish) neighbours since we produce methane too. Just in a slightly different way. It would be an interesting way to communicate, anyway.
freshacconci

Re: #4 & #7: Which Vonnegut book mentions the alien who communicates through farting and tap-dancing?

The moment of contact may have arrived…
- Scixual
  
  From Slaughterhouse 5, I think. Er, google fetches this:
  
  â€œA flying saucer creature named Zog arrived on Earth to explain how wars could be prevented and how cancer could be cured. He brought the information from Margo, a planet where the natives conversed by means of farts and tap dancing.
  
  â€œZog landed at night in Connecticut. He had no sooner touched down than he saw a house on fire. He rushed into the house, farting and tap dancing, warning the people about the terrible danger they were in. The head of the house brained Zog with a golf club.â€
  - freshacconci
    
    Yes, thank you! I could have searched it myself, but the results of a google search of “farting and tap-dancing” is something I could do without.
    - Ugly Canuck
      
      Every man ought to do a little fartin’ with some tap-dancing at least once in his life. C’mon, live a little!
Brainspore

There’s a dude from Tralfamadore waiting for us to bring a replacement part for his space ship.
Thac0

Squeee!
jimbuck

Unfortunately for most, they aren’t good eatin’.
Anonymous

They breath hydrogen and eat acetylene? So they’re fire people? Dude!
- Keenan Pepper
  
  Well, these organic compounds like methane and acetylene can’t “burn” without oxygen, so to them WE would be the “fire people”.
  - Ugly Canuck
    
    Yes…these (assuming it isn’t a uni-creature) things are far far colder than we are.
    We are the hot-blooded ones, in comparison to the Titan guys, if they’re there.
    
    So…Earth (certainly), Mars (maybe), Europa (maybe & by analogy maybe all icy moons with ‘big enough’ sub-surface oceans ie Ganymede), Enceladus (an icy moon with certain water), and now Titan (maybe).
    
    Seems like a lot of chances of life, for just one solar system. But what do we know about it?
maralenenok

I prefer to delightedly clap my hands like a little boy.
jfaehnle

Anyone else notice that Maggie’s hypothetical about the burglars is the same setup for Beavis & Butthead Do America? A lot of methane has come from those two & they have eaten some strange things in their day.

Did Mike Judge unintentionally predict what E.T. life might be like? If so, I picture the greatest reality TV show ever!
Anonymous

“The Loneliest Probe”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YmNeUU_8yQ

A story about a Robot that travels to Titan to discover what is on the surface.
Robert

I’d rather clap my flippers together like a little T’tmnxblrg.
Cochituate

Maggie, I am of the school that says that the results of the first Mars lander (was it the first? I can’t remember) proved life. I know NASA doesn’t officially think so, but looking at both sides of the argument, I think there is there, so this would be third.

In a couple of decades, it’ll be fun to count all the asteroids where we’ll be finding it.
Nathaniel

I’m not so sure you would notice that oxygen was being used up near the Earth’s surface, because on Earth the oxygen is produced on the surface as well as used up there. (On Titan I think the hydrogen is produced by photochemistry in the atmosphere)

These results are really exciting – it’s such a shame there are no more missions planned to the Saturn system in the near future.
Larry7

“the house might have been burglarized”

I’m sorry- “BURGLARIZED”?? wtf are you smoking?

I think the word you’re after is burgled- unless of course you’re from one of those states still asserting section 3.09b of the “Let’s Wreck English” Act, dated from the Boston Tea Party…

Same goes for “Titanish”
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  I think the word you’re after is burgled
  
  You must be from the old country. How are the quaint outfits and Morris dancing working out for you? Burgle is not used in US English. In fact, the definition of ‘burgle’ is ‘to burglarize’.
  - godisafiction
    
    Haha, nice one Centurion!
- Ugly Canuck
  
  I’m sure that it wasn’t “booglerize”, as in “I’m Gonna Booglerize Ya baby”, usage demonstrated here:
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu9fOcIzYNQ
  
  Sure looks like an American usage to me.
Brainspore

I am of the school that says that the results of the first Mars lander (was it the first? I can’t remember) proved life.

Any thoughts on why subsequent, more sophisticated probes haven’t discovered further evidence?
boxbrown

Kurt Vonnegut hypothesized this in Sirens of Titan. Some of the awesome things on Titan are the Titanic Blue Birds and Titanic Peat, which is apparently the greatest sculpting substance ever.
Felton

Oops! I didn’t mean for my comment to reply to yours, Maggie. Slip of the mouse. :-)
Jesse M.

Evidence is also looking pretty good for life on Mars lately:

Life on Mars theory boosted by new methane study

New Study of Meteorite Provides More Evidence for Ancient Life on Mars
Stefan Jones

Obama should declare war on Titan and divert 3/4 of the defense budget into developing a space navy and self-sufficient advance bases on all major moons.
benher

Who are we kidding – the Titan people probably won’t even consent to talk to us after they see what we did to the ocean…
- Rindan
  
  Who are we kidding – the Titan people probably won’t even consent to talk to us after they see what we did to the ocean…
  
  …that or they will congratulate us on displaying some of that horrible toxic water that is utterly unable to sustain life with far more useful organics.
  
  While this is an awesome discovery, I wouldn’t piss yourself with joy just yet. What they found is interesting, but life is just one of a handful of other explanations they have come up with to explain the weird chemistry going on. That said, it is certainly interesting enough to merit another probe in the near future.
Wingo

We just need to build a ship powered by Universal Will to Become (UWTB)to take us there.
Xopher

OMG we’re all gonna diiiiiiiiiiiiie!

OK, now that’s been done. Carry on.
Derek C. F. Pegritz

TITANIANS. They’re called TITANIANS! Just like the Japanese should be called Japanians, or…no, OK, Titanese works too, I guess.

Anyway, I doubt we’ll have to worry much about the Titanians: they’re biology is so slow, it takes a typical individual an entire Saturnian year to think a single simple thought. And if they come any closer to the sun than, say, the Jovian system, they burst into flames.
Halloween Jack

I’ll believe it when the green Titanazon women come to Earth to teach us their alien sex magic secrets, and by “us” I mean “me”.
- Anonymous
  
  Well, what you’re looking for are Orion girls. I doubt you’ll find them on Titan. ;)
Ugly Canuck

Gee you learn an interesting new fact every day, if you pay attention.
About Titan, from the wiki article linked to above:

“The atmosphere is so thick and the gravity so low that humans could fly through it by flapping “wings” attached to their arms.”

As I said, an alien place.
Anonymous

Sadly there was life until the Cassini probe/lander squished it.
sparkplug

Yeah — we’ll be eating carbon and surrounded by oxygen, and they’ll be eating acetylene and surrounded by methadone and hydrogen. Sounds like we’d be WAY better off just not going near each other, lest the meeting be literally fireworks.
KurtMac

Hate to be a buzzkill, but:
“It is more likely that a chemical process, without biology, can explain these results.” – Mark Allen, principal investigator with the NASA Astrobiology Institute Titan team – Space.com
- Ugly Canuck
  
  Then by all means, do so.
  I am not so sure that such an abiotic mechanism has been elucidated, yet.
  - Ugly Canuck
    
    Makes me wonder about the boundary, if any, between extremely complex but abiotic chemistry, and extremely simple yet biotic chemistry: and how the difference is to be assessed in alien environments, with markedly differing conditions from those of our own environment.
    
    So…what is life?
    
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwHXyAycHlw
    
    no one can tell…
    - Anonymous
      
      Self-replicating and using energy to maintain some distinct information is a good start.
      - Ugly Canuck
        
        Distinct, or separate?
        From its environment, right.
      - Ugly Canuck
        
        In an low-energy environment like Titan’s, self-maintenance, rather than self-replication, may be the most we may be able to observe.
        I assume low energy = slower processes, but if these thing are like “plankton” in Titan’s methane lakes, rivers and swamps…with methane playing the role of water in their biology….well I just don’t know, at that.
        I mean, using hydrogen to consume/breakdown acetylene, while apparently swimming or immersed in liquid methane, all at an ambient temperature of -179 degrees Celsius (-290 degrees Farehnheit)?
        
        That’s pretty alien, now that I think about it.
        
        Wiki link for Titan (moon):
        
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_%28moon%29
wylkyn

To Ganymede and Titan,
Yes sir, I’ve been around…
Aurini

A technological race, expanding at 0.1 C, would take about a million years to colonize the galaxy. There’s been plenty of time for this to happen. Thus, the Fermi Paradox: where are they? No evidence has been discovered that suggests artificial structures anywhere in our Universe, apart from Earth.

So there must be a Great Filter somewhere – either technological races destroy themselves before expansion, or one of the steps on the way to developing intelligence is extremely rare.

Finding life – even primitive life – increases the odds that the Great Filter lies somewhere in our future. Granted, our anthropically biased evidence suggest that simple life is an sufficiently probable event that it is almost certainly not the Great Filter – but this doesn’t change the fact that discovering non-terrestrial life is bad news.
- Ugly Canuck
  
  Maybe advanced races do not interfere, and mask their activities effectively.
  Conceivable, no? Since I stole it from Star Trek.