Saturns Moon Titan: A World with Rivers,Lakes, and Possibly Even Life
March 9, 2011
Dr. Chris McKay (NASA Ames Research Center)
Titan, Saturn's largest satellite, is the only moon with a thick atmosphere. In many ways, Titan is a cold twin of the Earth, with liquid methane playing the same role there as water plays on our planet. Life on Earth is based on liquid water; could there be life on Titan based on liquid methane? Dr. McKay (co-investigator on the Huygens probe that landed on Titan) discusses the new picture we have of this alien world, with its lakes, its rivers, and its rocks made of water ice.
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Chris McKay is one if my favorite science orators. He demonstrates how a very intelligent person can deliver an entertaining and informative talk without even a hint of condescension. We need more scientists like Chris.
@charleswood7001
4 жыл бұрын
Chris is great, first saw him in a BBC documentary called Mars Alive way back in the early 90s.
@Prof_Tickles92
3 жыл бұрын
He’s funny too!
Chris McKay is the ultimate science speaker. He is interesting and obviously intelligent, but never acting superior and looking down on the audience. The way he engages questions is awesome.
@Prof_Tickles92
3 жыл бұрын
He also had great dad jokes.
I love where he says looking at earth from titan, earth would look too hot to support life
9 years later the Dragonfly drone has been approved. In 2034 we will see images from the surface of Titan.
@thandasibisi7534
3 жыл бұрын
Professor_Tickles 92 Should be interesting.Unfortunately for us “older folks” (I am 69 years old and retired) 2034 could well be “a bridge too far”. If I am still alive in 2034 I will be 83, a possibility but a bit on the improbable side.
Found this channel. Very excited about this channel. Thank you NASA.
Thank you Chris. I enjoy your lecture and your intelligence. I am a huge Titan fan, and enjoy so much your information and humor tied with it. Keep em coming!!
This lecture is excellent. I'm also impressed at the well thought out the audience questions. Very thought provoking discussion :)
Chris McKay so inspiring. Thank you
I love this series and this one is my favorite.
Wow ! Wonderfully explained intriguing possibility ! And wonderful style of delivery ! Provocative and thought provoking , even for us none chemists !
My new favorite speaker! So interesting ..Thankyou! Funny too😄
It is the first time I have seen him talk, I loved the chemistry stuff a lot, and that is what I have missed most from other science nonfiction films or talks
Very interesting lecture, Titan has always made me dream! However, 2 problems… First, the Hydrogen depletion. Dr. Mc Kay suggest that it is due to “consumption” by biology, because no other chemical process at these temperatures can explain it… Yet, there are also physical processes, more accurately adsorption processes. Although Hydrogen atoms cannot adsorb well on ice, Hydrogen molecules feel quite comfortable doing that. That could initiate “an hydrogen cycle”. The hydrogen would eventually desorb at a favor of a seasonal change. A full seasonal year on Titan, with repeating temperature cycles, is 29,5Yrs based on that of Saturn. We have only been around Titan for a short while… I would use Occam’s razor here… especially after considering the 2nd problem. I am a physical-chemist (PhD, post-doc), and the first thing I thought about when the lecture started was that CH4 is not a polar solvent… That puts a serious blow to the complexity needed in biological systems. This was mentioned during the questions, so I am not the only one to think that. The suggestion of a low solubility of ammonia in liquid methane at these Temperatures (Like carbonates in water in terms of solubility), does keep a little hope, but it does feel a lot like a “patch” and the lecturer feels it too. Otherwise, thanks for the wonderful journey! It was very enjoyable! Edouard
@gukonni
6 жыл бұрын
Thanks for your post. Very informative.
@sonnyburgess2510
4 жыл бұрын
Wrong
@sonnyburgess2510
4 жыл бұрын
Lol
Very interesting talk! The possibilities....
That was a fascinating presentation. I am struck at how intelligent this guy is.
@pipertripp
9 жыл бұрын
And he's a very good presenter too. I've enjoyed a number of his talks.
superb presentation McKay2020
Fantastic lecture! Give Chris the funds to send a couple of probes to Titan and Enceladus!
As for the question at 59:53 Any more trips planned to Titan? (I can answer that in 2020), Yes we have one planned called Dragonfly. Should arrive there early in the 2030s based on current planning. If someone sees this comment from the 2030s leave a comment on how it is going. BTW, he is right on his dates. This was filmed in 2013 and Dragonfly is scheduled to arrive in 2034, 21 years.
they should have a department on titan so they can get started
Very interesting
You didn't quite get it... carbon life requires liquid water to "function". If there is life on Titan, it would probably be using liquid methane instead of water and some other element(or combination of elements) to act as carbon does in our kind of life.
I'm not saying that microbial life in Titan wouldn't be exciting, but I still think it's a bit of stretch to compare it to earth life in terms of rarity and level of excitement. At least until we've actually found it. Judging by the exos we've found so far, earth seems to indeed be rare, even if worlds like Titan and Europa are not. It is possible that geo locking the Earth instantly would successfully wipe life out because of the extreme new weather that would cause as one side froze solid and the other evaporated in the heat. Even with the planet full of life at the outset, it might not be able to survive that. That's just one of the many flukes making the earth as pleasant as it is. And if that spin came from the hypothesized Thea impact, along with the moon and possibly plate tectonics, it might be almost impossibly rare all on its own. Certainly if the angle of the impact, relative mass etc matters. Most of the "earth like" planets we have detected do not have moons as far as we know, and most of them are either tidally locked, too hot, too cold, too dry, too big, too small, too wet or any number of other significant problems. This is still the only sample we have, and therefore what it makes the most sense to look for.
How does a Tricorder work? Very well thank you....
How does the picture get here, what is the power source? Is it a RF signal, what powers the signal? Does the prob have a battery? Solar Panels? What are the mechanics of sending a radio signal this distance?
Have you searched in the universe for similar “listening” of the atmospheric haze?
Couldn’t we have an experiment like the haze for Mars? Could be cool. 😎
Could anyone give me a clear explanation what causes Titan's orange haze? Is it just due to the Nitrogen and Methane forming and is that what creates the haze?
How, again... did you see the atmospheric haze in Titan?
It’s like a guide to cloud life.
In Earths oceans water is cycled through hot spots in the depths of the oceans, could the same thing be happening on Titan but with liquid methane cycling through water magma hot spots? Could this be the way oxygen is obtained? In addendum if the frozen H2O "rock" is as impure as the SiO2 rock on earth is the Titan equivalent of black smokers could add quite a bit to the chemistry of the liquid CH4...
@Moontanman
10 жыл бұрын
He mentioned Ammonia as well and NH3 dissolves easily in water and would be a part of the water rock, in fact you would expect water rock to be as impure as SiO2 is on earth...
Lecture starts at 3:00 you can skip the intro
Professor.. why don’t we make ourselves a challenge to make sometime survive in a brine pools in space. I believe somewhere spinning cool in space could be nice.
Ben BOVA said...FLAMMABLE SAND DUNES.
Agua sin congelar en una luna de un planeta tan lejana al sol ? será que el sol que le da el calor está en otra galaxia cercana y desconocida ?
@iRA_mkb
8 жыл бұрын
es metano
🤔 a sort of kinda cool stuff. A Cosmo biological LHCB
CHRISTOPHER MCKAY GREAT SOLAR SYSTEM KNOWLEDGE AND SEARCH FOR LIFE IN UNIVERSE
I wonder if we actually found life, would we try to capture a specimen in the future? I would find it pretty ironic, humans being the abductos.
So Is This Means That Life Could Synthesize In Any Environment of a Atmosphere or Any Landscape !! Such as If A Life Form Live in Titan !! Basically It Would Be Possible That They Have Adapted To Those Environment Conditions Such as -180 Degrees Celsius
11:42 Energy, only 2 types used on Earth, Sunlight, mostly & Chemical you say. Hmm, one other perhaps, radiosynthesis? some fungi around Chernobyl have been found to be using this. 13:46 no liquid water? no chance at all it's on our tree of life?, subsurface there's liquid water isn't there? with its less than circular orbit around Titan tidal forces must provide a lot of energy to take the place of sunlight so you might look there for more familiar water based life.
is there ocean in titan ?
@colinrobinson1924
7 жыл бұрын
Titan does not have surface ocean surrounding continents. It has bodies of surface liquid (methane and ethane) which are surrounded by land, and some of these bodies of liquid are big enough to be called seas. Titan may also have a deep subsurface ocean of liquid water and ammonia.
love the rare titan concept so true hoooray for diversity
@manospondylus4896
7 жыл бұрын
Raven Fields long live liquid methane!
How can you sat it dose bot happwb
1:19:24 that's what she said
It's funny, if i think about it... that that element that can replace carbon might be water, since water on the Titanian environment behaves like silicon(silicon which is a close friend to carbon) does here on earth.
@richardkelly1052
6 жыл бұрын
Water is not an element - it is a compound made of oxygen and hydrogen.
If there is intelligent life on titan, it's a very new civilization because any advanced or at least our level of advancement would notice an unknown satellite orbiting there world
@YoMamaSoLlamaBruhhhh
9 жыл бұрын
TheMuscleNetwork remember, we need to find life at all before we look for intelligent life like us
@erodict5840
8 жыл бұрын
+YoMamaSoLlama Microbes? :D
@YoMamaSoLlamaBruhhhh
8 жыл бұрын
Erodict anything
@KuracUTeci
8 жыл бұрын
Maybe they are Just evolving but wouldnt it be awesome to see animals with completly different biology than ours
Rare Titan xD
I love how his PowerPoint is so awful. xD
I don’t think is so difficult, it’s just we’ve tried to find by our same exactly looks. I don’t think I look like an ape. Although sometimes I’m reminded that i do.
"this slide intentionally left banke" banke?
@kennethkustren9381
4 жыл бұрын
I am sure they meant blanc. LMFAO !!
☺️
Can’t we create storms? ☺️
For life to exist in a physical context, it only needs energy, no matter where it comes from! The other important thing is consciousness, which is certainly important for higher life forms. Even though our body is composed of billions of cells each of which lives only for a few years at the most and can be even made to live independently in a petri dish, we have a consciousness of our own that is independent our cells!
@rrshankar2000
9 жыл бұрын
They might very well have! I am just saying that our collective consciousness seems to be independent of the cell's! The other day I saw a video of an amoeba surrounding two parameciums...how they react when the amoeba starts digesting them! They seem to feel the pain and distress even though they are just single cells and don't have a brain or sensory system the way we understand it! I believe earth as a whole, other planets and even the sun has a consiousness...even though we may never understand them...in that context we are even more insignificant than the cells in our body!
@YDDES
8 жыл бұрын
+Ravi Shankar Not quite right. Our brain cells live much longer and our consiousness is dependent on them. Life also needs some fluid to evolve and exist.
@rrshankar2000
8 жыл бұрын
YDDES May be much longer, but not longer than us! Not sure about the need for a fluid if it is not water based like ours is!
@YDDES
8 жыл бұрын
+Ravi Shankar Without somekind of fluid, the elements needed to build up living cells, or whatever living matter, can't get together. Molecules can't crawl over dry stones to get together and combine...
That’s 😎 what they eat
this lexture begs the question... could there actually be life on Uranus?
@rick7020
10 жыл бұрын
You are a Genius!
2:30 mins in , apparently with put humans on Titan.... eehhhhh
THEY HAVE TO AIR
Meanwhile we are spending hundreds of millions of dollars taking pictures of a dead rock in the Kuiper belt.
Are animals and plants, 2 completely different life forms? I am not sure that animals could exist with plants but I thinks plants could exist without animals?
@YDDES
8 жыл бұрын
+Larkinchance All lifeforms on Earth have evolved from the same source. Yes, plants can exist without animals. If some animal life forms can eat minerals, there's nothing to say that plants are needed.
It's the tenth planet I know others have this same thought it is not a moon.
Does my gas tank look infected to you 🤔???
If they find life anywhere in the galaxy, you will be the last to know
@mysmilei
8 жыл бұрын
you are right!
Haiti might send the first man on Titan.
There's no life on Titan since The Endgame
Or so
I agree. ☝️. New technology needed. I believe we’ve known about the it just don’t want to show it. There’s Saturn’s Rings.
slide intentionally left banke...
@bothewolf3466
5 жыл бұрын
You were good McKay until you started you hate-filled political crap at 1:04:00. I live in a blue state, but I don't think 100% of red state residents are racist. You are really an ass. GREAT speech otherwise, though, so you've got that going for you...
Hmm 🤔 Brime pools have water... they kill creature 💔
life may exist there in frozen conditions, is jut too cold there... no humans could survive...
@YoMamaSoLlamaBruhhhh
9 жыл бұрын
stewart hughes or life is made and based off methane like we are water, remember, life finds a way
There are mutants
What if they drink something different 🤭
BEYOND EARTH MOONS WITH VERY GOLD ICY MOONS THERE COULD BE LIVE BUT 300 BLOW --0 -- HUMAN COULD BE IMPOSSIBLE TO LIVE ----IF LIFE EXISTS IN ANOTHER PLANET MOON THERE IS LIFE IN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE
nearly every sphere capable of harboring life does so...cold is a human concept....if you evolve in cold it is normal.
Why are you no toys
C'MON GUYS THERE IS NO LIFE OUT THERE. IT STARTS WITH EARTH. WE ARE THE "ALIENS"
In the ocean around the world. The ppl there kno u and theyre staying out there. You r awesome but plz b careful
it's"easy" to check this out for yourself: just get yourself abducted by one of the alien ufos which obviously exist right above our tiny, little propeller- beanied heads
I mean for the love of God. You make it sound like it’s nothing. 🤭
Life is organisation. Life is not to seperate even from rocks :-) Respect for the ideology comment.
Ng
Titan will be the easiest to settle. Bet money I could go outside on titan and run 1/2 mile with just a gas mask and coat. I'm not going to bet money now they would probably have me carry 1000 lbs of weights.
this is what earth would look like after humans have destroyed it and aliens come looking... a dried up shrivel of a promising land
the powerpoint is useless, illegible and god-knows-what
As long as it rejects the possibility of life being designed it is scientific. LOL!
titan would smell like a pig farm; if you could sniff the atmosphere without killing the sniffer!
Star trek imposibble
it is interesting how they have the scenery of the buildings like 22.10 look to the bright spot lower right of scene. those who have 42 inch screens and above will see them clearly . but this is not the first time these documentaries show genuine photos but then air brush things out.. why. i have solid proof in color photos of the same buildings on our moon, except these are in full color and download them and study them. you will see now things every time you look at them. facebook.com/meatandpotatoesofnews/photos_stream now if i can show you lit up structures and lit up landing pad, GLASS domes surrounded by bluish light. i will attempt another try and replace the blurry photos because the camera i was using had a plastic protector and it smeared there bright lights but ill fix this soon as i can. anyhow so when these people make these nasa documentaries they pay nasa for the footage and photos but if you record this video and play it at your pace and see the hidden structures.
🤔 I think alien should mean pre or after our understanding of our own evolution in the universe... considering our understanding of TIME, which also means, we should treat time only as a particle, that helps us measure our own evolution. 🤔 considering that. Nothing is alien, if it’s biochemically different I’ll be more interested in how to evolve to get to that state. ☺️ It’s much more interesting and fun. Why bother if they’re aliens or not. I’ll prefer to find how they’ve evolve... Imagine you’re a dinosaur and find a human. He won’t care. As long as you’re tasty. 😋
It's now 8 years on and there's no river and or lakes in Titan... All this talk about nothing for nothing...
How stupid will chris mckay feel when he find out there is alien life on earth and that they have been coming here for years and years and the goverment and nasa, which he works for, has known about it for over 60 years? Or just maybe hes already knows and is in on the cover up.
@davidsimplot5764
4 жыл бұрын
Titan"?well people I don't believe theirs any way Anyone out there inside this Astronomical/scientific world that support those Telescopes and All of these Reports about the("9"TH PLANET we've ALL been hearing about Forever?if you're gonna deny Titan is Not this(9Th Planet?)then what information more?what more proof would Anyone Need than the fact that it's got everything anyone's gonna need too sustain life?("TITAN'S"THAT NINTH PLANET")there is our 9Th PLANET!I found it Yeah!.Thank You very much!.
☺️