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:

    Of all the bewildering things about a new country, the absence of human landmarks is one of the most depressing and disheartening.
    Willa Cather (1873–1947)

    One merit in Carlyle, let the subject be what it may, is the freedom of prospect he allows, the entire absence of cant and dogma. He removes many cartloads of rubbish, and leaves open a broad highway. His writings are all unfenced on the side of the future and the possible. Though he does but inadvertently direct our eyes to the open heavens, nevertheless he lets us wander broadly underneath, and shows them to us reflected in innumerable pools and lakes.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    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)

    A kind heart he hath. A woman would run through fire and water for such a kind heart.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)