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Life in methane

07.03.2015

Chemists have shown that Saturn's moon Titan may contain structures similar to the cell membranes of living organisms. True, they can exist only in liquid methane at extremely low temperatures.

In the solar system, Earth is the only planet that has water in a habitable liquid form. Frozen water is not only on Earth, it is on the same comets, but, alas, they are only suitable for freezing. But for life in our, albeit more general, understanding, a liquid medium is necessary. Then the question arises - if not on Earth, then where?

It is possible that there were seas and oceans on Mars, but now the surface of our closest planetary neighbor is dry, and the Curiosity rover successfully travels over it. Mercury, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn are also not very encouraging in terms of water surfaces. However, astronomers have discovered that the latter has a moon, Titan, and has seas on it. The catch is that these seas consist of liquid hydrocarbons, including methane and ethane, moreover, with temperatures below -180°C.

This fact did not bother the chemists at Cornell University at all, and they decided to see what chemical structures could exist under such conditions. As a starting point, they took the same lipid bilayer that makes up cell membranes on Earth. The researchers did not try to find an earthly form of biological matter that could survive in the cold seas of Titan. The task was to find a structure that would perform the same functions in liquid methane as the cell membrane does in water.

The researchers performed computer simulations in which they simulated the behavior of various substances in liquid methane and were surprised to find that a simple acrylonitrile molecule was able to form membrane-like structures. The molecules were assembled in double layers, orienting the polar nitrile groups inward, and exposing the hydrocarbon "tail" outward. Similar structures, similar in size to small terrestrial viruses, turned out to be quite stable, which means that there is a possibility that very interesting objects can exist in liquid methane.

Of course, one cannot say that some acrylonitrile monsters swim in the methane seas of Titan, but it’s worth thinking about what life is and where it can be found. If water is so necessary for terrestrial organisms, then perhaps some liquid hydrocarbon is also vital for other forms.

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The climate of Germany is milder than ours, but even there in winter there are big problems with the removal of snow and ice from the streets.

Railconcrete is testing a heating system for bus stops in Chemnitz. In the concrete slab on which the stop pavilion stands, coils are built into the edge of the sidewalk and the roadway, through which non-freezing liquid is pumped from a well drilled in the ground. The depth of the well depends on the area to be heated.

A heat pump (a device capable of concentrating and pumping heat from where there is little to where it is even less) maintains a temperature sufficient for melting. The sensors turn on the heat pump when the concrete temperature drops below zero and turn it off when the temperature rises. Even with heavy snowfall, the sidewalk in this place remains clean.

A larger trial is planned for winter 2005/06 at a large number of Dresden bus stops. The experiment should show what is cheaper - to introduce such systems or to remove snow and ice in the usual way, with sprinkling of salt.

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