Life On Titan - Absence of Liquid Water

Absence of Liquid Water

Apparent lack of liquid water on Titan's surface has been cited by NASA astrobiologist Andrew Pohorille as an argument against life there. Pohorille considers that water is important not only as the solvent used by "the only life we know" but also because its chemical properties are "uniquely suited to promote self-organization of organic matter". He has questioned whether prospects for finding life on Titan's surface are sufficient to justify the expense of a mission which would look for it.

Read more about this topic:  Life On Titan

Famous quotes containing the words absence of, absence, liquid and/or water:

    Vulgarity cannot exist in the absence of loftier values. Once it has affected the latter, however, it wants to absorb them. Unless you want to be as weak and small as human beings, you had better stay away from them.
    Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)

    The heart may think it knows better: the senses know that absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends. The friend becomes a traitor by breaking, however unwillingly or sadly, out of our own zone: a hard judgment is passed on him, for all the pleas of the heart.
    Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)

    Shopping malls are liquid TVs for the end of the twentieth century. A whole micro-circuitry of desire, ideology and expenditure for processed bodies drifting through the cyber-space of ultracapitalism.
    Arthur Kroker (b. 1945)

    Well designed, fully functional infant. Provides someone to live for as well as another mouth to feed. Produces cooing, gurgling and other adorable sounds. May cause similar behavior in nearby adults. Cries when hungry, sleepy or just because. Hand Wash with warm water and mild soap, then pat dry with soft cloth and talc. Internal mechanisms are self-cleaning... Two Genders: Male. Female. Five Colors: White. Black. Yellow. Red. Camouflage.
    Alfred Gingold, U.S. humorist. Items From Our Catalogue, “Baby,” Avon Books (1982)