Building block found on saturn's moon

Building Block for 'Vinyl Life' Found on Saturn's Moon Titan

When winter comes to Titan’s poles, it brings seasonal downpours of toxic molecules that could, under the right conditions, assemble themselves into structures like the biological membranes that encase living cells on Earth.

Called vinyl cyanide, those molecules are created high in Titan’s atmosphere, and now, scientists know there’s a truckload of them tucked into the moon’s orange haze that probably rain down on its icy surface.


 More than 10 billion tons of it could be floating in Ligeia Mare, the second-largest lake in the north, according to the paper published today in Science Advances.

What the compound does once it gets into Titan’s lakes, and whether it actually self-assembles, is still a mystery.

 But based on the molecule’s hypothesized ability to form membranes, the discovery raises the question of whether one of life’s key requirements might be easily achievable in Titan’s alien oceans.