Titan: New Photos of Saturn's Moon Has Believers Hopeful for Proof of Alien Life
Earlier this month, the Webb Space Telescope captured a series of images of Titan. While this is far from the first time we've laid eyes on the popular moon of Saturn, those who believe in the existence of extraterrestrial life are excited about what the future could hold given what the images show. In fact, renowned believer and Harvard physicist Avi Loeb says the moon could be the "Bellwether" for similar situations for life across the cosmos.
"It does not need to be close to a star," Loeb said in a recent interview with The Daily Beast. "The cosmic microwave background, left over from the Big Bang, would have kept it at [that] temperature."
A Titan-ic success!
— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) December 1, 2022
Here is Webb’s first look at Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Because Titan has a dense atmosphere, its surface is hidden in visible light. Enter Webb’s infrared eye, which captured clouds as well as bright & dark patches on its surface: https://t.co/zQsSN9Py4H pic.twitter.com/6NuQMfXAFN
While Titan is the only moon in our solar system to have its own atmosphere, the temperature on the surface of the planet averages minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit at any given point throughout the day. Disastrous temperatures for those that live on Earth, sure, but Loeb thinks the environment could be the norm for life elsewhere in galaxy.
"If life exists on Titan, then it could have emerged in the universe 100 million years after the Big Bang," Loeb explained.
In the pictures captured by Webb, Titan can be seen for an angle similar to that of Earth. Though blurry, you can still make out the lands and methane-filled lakes the line the moon's surface. Not only that, but there are clouds visible in the pictures, confirming the moon also has seasonal weather patterns, another potential positive for life.
"The team also collected spectra with Webb's Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec), which is giving us access to many wavelengths that are blocked to ground-based telescopes like Keck by Earth's atmosphere," the NASA team analyzing Webb data wrote in a blog post earlier this month. "This data, which we are still analyzing, will enable us to really probe the composition of Titan's lower atmosphere and surface in ways that even the Cassini spacecraft could not, and to learn more about what is causing the bright feature seen over the south pole."
As far as the existence of life on Titan goes, we'll have to wait quite some time to find out whether or not aliens live on the surface. In the mean time, Loeb is continuing to pen studies on his pursuit of alien life, the latest of which you can read here.