Portrait of Titan

[Dr Mordrid]

NASA / JPL / SSI An infrared view from the Cassini orbiter reveals the Saturnian moon Titan's surface.

Could Titan harbor life as we don't know it? The speculation is that its conditions would allow the formation of silanes, a form of silicon that behaves like carbon. For life to result these conditions would be required at a minimum;

1. a reducing atmosphere with only small amounts of oxygen

2. low temperatures, at the very least below the freezing point of water but mostly colder is better

3. low amounts of water

4. low amounts of carbon

5. some solvent other than water - methane would work

Titan meets all of these but for #4 in general, but in carbon free regions.....

I suggest reading Life in the Universe: Expectations and Constraints by Dirk Schulze-Makuch and Louis N. Irwin if you want to pursue this. Online version here.....

[Jammrock]

Everytime I see an image like this it makes me wish I could hop into a spaceship and blast off to see it for myself. How I would love to explore the stars

[VJ]

I know the feeling..............

[Nowhere]

Though FTL is probably not possible in our universe... http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?.../04/03/1236208 (not only that particular news, also the thing we haven't observed any natural time paradoxes and violations of second law of thermodynamics (natural FTL phenomena would also do the latter...))

Of course with a ship that has a constant acceleration/deceleration of 1g you can get to any place of the observable Universe in a few years...of ships time (goodbye family, friends...Earth )