Life On Titan - Surface Temperature

Surface Temperature

Due to its distance from the Sun, Titan is much colder than the Earth. Its surface temperature is about 94 K (−179 °C, or −290 °F). At these temperatures, water ice does not melt, evaporate or sublime, but remains solid.

Because of the extreme cold and also because of lack of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, scientists such as Jonathan Lunine have viewed Titan less as a likely habitat for extraterrestrial life, than as an experiment for examining theories on the conditions that prevailed prior to the appearance of life on Earth. However Lunine does not rule out life in an environment of liquid methane and ethane, and has written about what discovery of such a life form (even if very primitive) would imply about the prevalence of life in the universe.

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