Biologically enhanced energy and carbon cycling on Titan?

Astrobiology

Volumn 5, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 560-567

  Schulze Makuch, Dirk ^a   Grinspoon, David H ^b  

^a WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b SOUTHWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE   (United States)

Author keywords

Biomass; Environment; Life; Metabolism; Titan

Indexed keywords

CARBON;

ARTICLE; ASTRONOMY; BIOGENESIS; BIOLOGY; ENERGY METABOLISM; METABOLISM; MICROCLIMATE; SPACE FLIGHT;

BIOGENESIS; CARBON; ENERGY METABOLISM; EXOBIOLOGY; EXTRATERRESTRIAL ENVIRONMENT; SATURN; SPACE SIMULATION;

EID: 24344496875     PISSN: 15311074     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1089/ast.2005.5.560     Document Type: Article

References (44)

1. Abbas, O. and Schulze-Makuch, D. (2002) Acetylenebased pathways for prebiotic evolution on Titan. ESA Special Publication SP-518, 345-348.
2. Artemieva, N. and Lunine, J.I. (2003) Cratering on Titan; impact melt, ejecta, and the fate of surface organics. Icarus 164, 471-480.
3. Battley, E.H. (1987) Energetics of Microbial Growth, John Wiley and Sons, New York.
4. Campen, R.K., Sowers, T., and Alley, R.B. (2003) Evidence of microbial consortia metabolizing within a low-latitude mountain glacier. Geology 31, 231-234.
5. Chanover, N.J., Anderson, C.M., McKay, C.P., Rannou, P., Glenar, D.A., Hillman, J.J., and Blass, W.E. (2003) Probing Titan's lower atmosphere with acousto-optic tuning. Icarus 163, 150-163.
6. Cousterds, A., Bezard, B., Lellouch, E., Fouchet, T., Conrath, B., Achterberg, R.K., Jennings, D.E., Bjoraker, G., Flasar, M., and the Cassini Team (2004) Stratospheric compositions of Titan from Cassini/ CIRS observations [abstract P41B-05]. EOS Trans. AGU 85 (Fall Meet. Suppl.).
7. Croft, S.K., Lunine, J.I., and Kargel, J.S. (1988) Equation of state of ammonia-water liquid: Derivation and planetological applications. Icarus 73, 279-293.
8. Elachi, C., Wall, S., Allison, M., Anderson, Y., Boehmer, R., Callahan, P., Encrenaz, P., Flamini, E., Franceschetti, G., Gim, Y., Hamilton, G., Hensley, S., Janssen, M., Johnson, W., Kelleher, K., Kirk, R., Lopes, R., Lorenz, R., Lunine, J., Muhleman, D., Ostro, S., Paganelli, F., Picardi, G., Posa, F., Roth, L., Seu, R., Shaffer, S., Soderblom, L., Stiles, B., Stofan, E., Vetrella, S., West, R., Wood, C., Wye, L., and Zebker, H. (2005) Cassini radar views the surface of Titan. Science 308, 970-974.
9. Fischer, G., Tokano, T., Macher, W., Lammer, H., and Rucker, H.O. (2004) Energy dissipation of possible Titan lightning strokes. Planet. Space Sci. 52, 447-458.
10. Fortes, A.D. (2000) Exobiological implications of a possible ammonia-water ocean inside Titan. Icarus 146, 444-452.
11. Gerdel, R.W. and Drouet, F. (1960) The cryoconite of the Thule area, Greenland. Trans Am. Microsc. Soc. 79, 256-272.
12. Griffith, C.A., Owen, T., Miller, G.A., and Geballe, T. (1998) Transient clouds in Titan's lower atmosphere. Nature 395, 575-578.
13. Irwin, L.N. and Schulze-Makuch, D. (2001) Assessing the plausibility of life on other worlds. Astrobiology 1, 143-160.
14. 2 in Titan's atmosphere. Nature 292, 686-688.
15. Leck, C., Tjernström, M., Matrai, P., Swietlicki, E., and Bigg, K. (2004) Can marine micro-organisms influence melting of the Arctic pack ice? EOS Trans. AGU 85, 25, 30, 32.
16. Lorenz, R.D. (2000) Post-Cassini exploration of Titan: Science rationale and mission concepts. J. Br. Interplanet. Soc. 53, 218-234.
17. Lorenz, R.D. (2002) Thermodynamics of geysers: Application to Titan. Icarus 156, 176-183.
18. Lorenz, R. and the Cassini RADAR Team (2004) Cassini RADAR: First encounter with Titan. Talk given at the 36th Meeting of the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society, Louisville, KY, 8 November 2004.
19. Lorenz, R.D. and Shandera, S.E. (2001) Physical properties of ammonia-rich ice: Application to Titan. Geophys. Res. Lett. 28, 215-218.
20. Lorenz, R.D., Lunine, J.I., and McKay, C.P. (1997) Titan under a red giant sun: A new kind of "habitable" moon. Geophys. Res. Lett. 24, 2905-2908.
21. Lorenz, R.D., Lunine, J.I., and McKay, C.P. (2000) Geologic settings for aqueous organic synthesis on Titan revisited. Enantiomer 6, 83-96.
22. Lorenz, R.D., Kraal, E., Asphaug, E., and Thomson, R.E. (2003) The seas of Titan. EOS Trans. AGU 84, 125, 131-132.
23. Lunine, J.I. (1994) Does Titan have oceans? Am. Sci. 82, 134-143.
24. Lunine, J.I., Yung, Y.L., and Lorenz, R.D. (1999) On the volatile inventory of Titan from isotopic abundances in nitrogen and methane. Planet. Space Sci. 47, 1291-1303.
25. McEwen, A., West, R., Turtle, E., Perry, J., Johnson, T., DelGenio, A., Dawson, D., Campbell, S., Barbara, J., and Porco, C. (2004) Cassini imaging observations of Titan [abstract P41B-01]. EOS Trans. AGU 85 (Fall Meet. Suppl.).
26. McKay, C.P., Lorenz, R.D., and Lunine, J.I. (1999) Analytic solutions for the antigreenhouse effect: Titan and the early Earth. Icarus 137, 56-61.
27. Mousis, O., Gautier, D., and Coustenis, A. (2002) The D/H ratio in methane in Titan: Origin and history. Icarus 159, 156-165.
28. Porco, C.C. and the Cassini Imaging Team (2005) Imaging of Titan from the Cassini spacecraft. Nature 434, 159-168.
29. Raulin, F. (1998) Titan. In The Molecular Origins of Life, edited by A. Brack, Cambridge University Press, New York, pp. 365-385.
30. Raulin, F. and Owen, T. (2002) Organic chemistry and exobiology on Titan. Space Sci. Rev. 104, 377-394.
31. Roe, H.G., de Pater, I., Macintosh, B.A., and McKay, C.P. (2002) Titan's clouds from Gemini and Keck adaptive optics imaging. Astrophys. J. 581, 1399-1406.
32. Schulze-Makuch, D. and Irwin, L.N. (2004) Life in the Universe: Expectations and Constraints, Springer, Berlin.
33. Smith, G.D., Strobel, A., Broadfoot, B., Sandel, D., Shemansky, J., and Holberg, J (1982) Titan's upper atmosphere: Composition and temperature from the EUV solar occultation results, J. Geophys. Res. 87, 1351-1360.
34. Smith, P.H., Lemmon, M.T., Lorenz, R.D., Sromovsky, L.A., Caldwell, J.J., and Allison, M.D. (1996) Titan's surface, revealed by HST imaging. Icarus 119, 336-349.
35. Sotin, C., Grasset, O., and Beauchesne, S. (1998) Thermodynamical properties of high pressure ices. Implications for the dynamics and internal structure of large icy satellites. In Astrophysics and Space Science Library Series, Vol. 227: Solar System Ices, edited by B. Schmitt, C. de Bergh, and M. Festou, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, the Netherlands, p. 79.
36. 4 records. Geophys. Res. Lett. 22, 41-44.
37. Thompson, W.R. and Sagan, C. (1992) Organic chemistry on Titan - surface interactions. ESA Special Publication SP-338, 167-176.
38. Tokano, T., Molina-Cuberos, G.J., Larnmer, H., and Stumptner, W. (2001a) Modelling of thunderclouds and lightning generation on Titan. Planet. Space Sci. 49, 539-560.
39. Tokano, T., Neubauer, F.M., Laube, M., and McKay, C.P. (2001b) Three-dimensional modeling of the tropospheric methane cycle on Titan. Icarus 153, 130-147.
40. Turtle, E.P. and the Cassini ISS Team (2004) Cassini ISS observations of the surface of Titan. Talk given at the 36th Meeting of the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society, Louisville, KY, 8 November 2004.
41. Waite, J.A., Niemann, H., Yelle, R.V., Kasprzak, W.T., Cravens, T.E., Luhmann, J.G., McNutt, R.L., Ip, W.-H., Gell, D., De La Haye, V., Müller-Wordag, I., Magee, B., Borggren, N., Ledvina, S., Fletcher, G., Walter, E., Miller, R., Scherer, S., Thorpe, R., Xu, J., Block, B., and Arnett, K. (2005) Ion neutral mass spectrometer results from the first flyby of Titan. Science 308, 982-986.
42. Wharton, R.A., McKay, C.P., Simmons, G.M., and Parker, B.C. (1985) Cryoconite holes on glaciers. Bioscience 35, 499-503.
43. Whitman, W.B., Coleman, D.C., and Wiebe, W.J. (1998) Prokaryotes: The unseen majority. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 95, 6578-6583.
44. Xu, J., Ramian, G.J., Galan, J.F., Savvidis, P.G., Scopatz, A.M., Birge, R.R., Allen, S.J., and Plaxco, K.W. (2003) Terahertz circular dichroism spectroscopy: A potential approach to unbiased, in situ life detection. Astrobiology 3, 489-504.