Bizarre and Fun Theory - Titan Alive?

[JMBuilder]

We all know Saturn's moon Titan as a big hunk of rock and nitrogen that could potentially harbor some form of life. I came up with a fun little theory (this is just one of the random concoctions of my brainstorming, so don't ridicule me for it). What if Titan doesn't just harbor life, but is life? What if the constantly-changing surface of the planet is the exoskeleton of some massive creature? We haven't studied the surface enough to know what it consists of.

As for the atmosphere being almost entirely useless nitrogen and hydrocarbon wastes, sunlight synthesizes other molecules in the upper atmosphere. These molecules could be Titan's nutrients. Its solvent would be the liquid methane on its surface.

And there you have it. The completely bizarre result of my random thoughts. I don't just brainstorm; I brain-hurricane.

[Camacha]

It would make sense for very large creatures to be spherical and that far out tidal deformation could replace the sun as an energy source. That just leaves the question where all its brothers and sisters are

[AbortButton]

And how it would have evolved/got to Saturn's orbit?

[Bill Phil]

Methane, is that a good solvent? I wouldn't know, but I doubt it is.

A life form that massive? Not very easy, and must be very energy intensive. I doubt that the synthesized nutrients in the atmosphere would be enough, unless it's hibernating...

[Camacha]

A life form that massive? Not very easy, and must be very energy intensive. I doubt that the synthesized nutrients in the atmosphere would be enough, unless it's hibernating...

It could live on a different time scale. If you take millennia, you don't need as much.

[Tommygun]

Well if you think about it you could say Earth is a living creature I guess.

Like a tree, only the outer layer is really alive. The interior is the skeleton.

All the plants, animals etc are like the microbes and chemical reaction going on in the body.

So a planet or moon evolving into something more recognizable as a single life form may not be that impossible.

Maybe imagine a coral reef covering a very small moon that just keeps slowly growing as it picks up organic compound ejected by other moons.

At some point the coral's mass is far greater than the original moon. Is it still a moon or a life form or both?

[lajoswinkler]

No. 10char

[PakledHostage]

I came up with a fun little theory

Its not a theory. At best it is a hypothesis. More likely, "it ain't Scottish".

[KerbMav]

Well if you think about it you could say Earth is a living creature I guess.

Like a tree, only the outer layer is really alive. The interior is the skeleton.

All the plants, animals etc are like the microbes and chemical reaction going on in the body.

So a planet or moon evolving into something more recognizable as a single life form may not be that impossible.

Maybe imagine a coral reef covering a very small moon that just keeps slowly growing as it picks up organic compound ejected by other moons.

At some point the coral's mass is far greater than the original moon. Is it still a moon or a life form or both?

If you think about it - as all life on earth shares one DNA "system", life possibly developed only once somewhere on Earth. It developed into cells, became multi-cellular, evolved into all the plants, fungi, animals we know (and not yet know), that adapted to their niches, forming a food chain, symbiotic relationships etc. - so, in a (mostly philosophical) way, Earth is inhabitad by one LIFEform.

[problemecium]

This is believable enough if you have a liberal definition for "life".

Humans are organisms made up of many very small living subunits (cells). During the evolution of multicellular life, unicellular creatures basically just started living in groups, which turned into colonies, and eventually the individuals were no longer able to survive outside of such a colony. It's not impossible that on Titan, life evolved and gradually ended up coating and permeating the entire moon until it was effectively a single massive super-organism.

The real test would be to see if Titan can satisfy the core requirements of being alive. It has to have some degree of environmental awareness, some type of metabolism, and some means of reproduction.

A probe landing on it doesn't have to be enough of a stimulus (any more than a gnat landing on a sleeping human), but there must be some sort of reproducible reaction to be achieved by something we could do to Titan. Would it try to move if the Sun started growing too cold? Or would it do something not strictly geological if we drilled into it?

As far as metabolism, Titan has to show evidence of consuming something and producing something else. Sure it radiates heat, and it "consumes" meteoroids that hit it, but there has to be something a bit more interesting (and presumably productive) going on. Is Titan covered, perhaps, with strange photosynthetic chemicals that use radiation to convert minerals into materials for structures or harvest energy?

Lastly, and certainly not least importantly, Titan has to have some means of fostering future generations of live planetoids. That involves either building a fresh planetoid from scratch or launching some kind of spore that is able to convert non-living planets and moons into live ones. At some point there'd have to be something like a baby for us to find, or some agent that turns non-living minerals into some form of life.

If it does happen to satisfy all that stuff, we'd better make sure not to tell Eren Jaeger ;P

Edited November 15, 2014 by parameciumkid

[sndrtj]

Biologist here. This is all a matter of definitions, but the most unifying definition of life is some kind of homeostasis. Using this definition, there is some evidence Earth functions like a giant organism (i.e. its atmosphere is profoundly regulated by life on its surface and seas). Is there any evidence there is some kind of homeostasis going on on Titan? Is its atmosphere regulated, or is just purely stochastic? If it is tightly regulated, then it might harbor life.

However, if you are postulating a planet-sized single individual organism, I'm going to say that's likely impossible. How would that evolve? There would need to be competition between similar-sized organisms within cosmic time scales, and all this on hundred of thousands of generations of this planet-sized organism. Titan has been where it is for several billion years - a sizeable fraction of the age of the universe - and I don't see what it would be competing over in the first place (a spot close enough to Saturn [such that it receives enough tidal stressing], perhaps?)

[problemecium]

Oh yeah, I forgot about that part.

Also, as long as I'm around, JM, you should know that what you have here isn't a theory but a hypothesis (and technically more of just a speculation than a hypothesis). A theory is something you've "proved" through a variety of repeatable tests (except that in proper Science you can't "prove" anything for certain).

[Camacha]

Titan has been where it is for several billion years - a sizeable fraction of the age of the universe - and I don't see what it would be competing over in the first place (a spot close enough to Saturn [such that it receives enough tidal stressing], perhaps?)

That might of course be a clever ruse by a cunning organism, developed and evolved in a environment where showing its true nature would summon the space whalers.

Its not a theory. At best it is a hypothesis. More likely, "it ain't Scottish".

In normal non-scientific speak something like this could be called a theory, though a bit of harmless fun would be a better description.

[zekes]

It would make sense for very large creatures to be spherical and that far out tidal deformation could replace the sun as an energy source.

You make so much sense right now. I want to believe.

[MartGonzo]

I'm not too sure about planets but the life cycles of stars have some interesting parallels to biological life

[meve12]

-Snip-

Titan itself might not be the critter in question. Suppose a fungal-like creature colonized the moon at some point in the distant past and now covers the entire surface, as well as penetrating into the interior?

[kerbiloid]

Of course, it is.

http://lexx.wikia.com/wiki/Giga_Shadow

[sndrtj]

Titan itself might not be the critter in question. Suppose a fungal-like creature colonized the moon at some point in the distant past and now covers the entire surface, as well as penetrating into the interior?

Read the first paragraph of my earlier post, and you'll an equivalent answer.

In this scenario Titan is not alive as an individual organism; it functions as a substrate for living organisms giving Titan features of life on a meta-scale.

[meve12]

Read the first paragraph of my earlier post, and you'll an equivalent answer.

In this scenario Titan is not alive as an individual organism; it functions as a substrate for living organisms giving Titan features of life on a meta-scale.

Apologies, it was past optimal bedtime for me.

That being said, a single alien lifeform covering and penetrating the entirety of Titan might count as having Titan itself being alive, right? Or at least amounting to the same thing.

EDIT: Wait, this is quibbling over semantics. Shutting up now.

Edited November 22, 2014 by meve12

[PakledHostage]

In normal non-scientific speak something like this could be called a theory, though a bit of harmless fun would be a better description.

I am a bit late responding (hadn't noticed your comment until now), but I think it is perfectly valid to point out the misuse of the term in the scientific context. This is *supposed* to be the science sub-forum, after all.

Misunderstanding of the use of the term "theory" in the scientific context can be exploited by those who are either ignorant themselves or being willfully manipulative to further their own ideologies.

I was perhaps a bit cheeky with my reference to the old Saturday Night Live skit, but I stand by my other point.