Liquid methane chemistry at -200 C.
-------------------------

Do we know anything about it?

What kind of compounds are formed at that temperature?

After a machine made a splash somewhere, this
looks like an interesting field of chemistry
isn't it?

Because couldn't a whole biochemistry be based
in compounds solved in methane at -200?

Since ambient energy is low, and solving solution
has less thermic movement, extremely low energy
gradients would become significant.

Complex structures can be built with less energy
and they are stable with less binding effort
since thermal energy is low.

Energy sources are present, since there were
strong winds. There are rivers that flow, rocks,
lakes. Everything an octave colder.

The sun ionizes the haze with UV,
making complex organic compounds
at the surface of the atmosphere.

This compounds rain down to cover
the whole planet. An orange haze.

Of food?

This looks like a biosphere, an octave
colder!

The reactions there are completely new to us.
Our knowledge of methane as solvent at that
temperature and the possible form of this
biochemistry can only be found with experiments
using the compounds of the blue haze around the
surface of Titan's atmosphere.

That is probably the base of the food chain,
that rains down into the whole planet.

This could be a huge biosphere, comparable
to ours, but an octave colder.

I am sure this possibility will occupy the mind
of humans as the next obvious step is prepared.

We have to come back.

To resume:

In Mars, something is breathing (methane found).
In Titan, something huge could have been found.

Mars is at the limit of water as universal solvent.
Titan shows us that methane based solvents are possible
at low temperatures.

Water using organisms are probably closer to us than
methane ones. And there could be other solvents
like sulfuric acid, using Phosphor-Sulfur biochemistry.

Biochemistry could be possible in non-water based
worlds.

Biochemistry is the active organization of atoms by software.

In our case, the software is encoded and stored in
specially built atom-chains: DNA.

Software could encode itself in strange compounds that
exist at temperatures and conditions we have no idea
about. Take a huge tank of sulfuric acid at 500 C.
Mix in Phosphorous, together with many other materials.

Energy can be extracted from the sun directly, and a lot
of energy is necessry at high temperatures, to maintain
the softare stable.

Beings using sulfuric acid as solvent would need a lot
of energy and their habitable zone is close to the star.

Beings using water as solvent, have an habitable zone
farther away from the star, but when the temperature
drops beyond the -100 or so, they can't exist.

The relay is taken by methane based beings. Ammoniac
could be a good universal solvent at low temperatures
too.

The habitable zone of those beings is farther away
from the star.

It extends as far as the solvent remains liquid. When
methane freezes they can't exist either.

Who takes the relay there?

Isolated planets in deep space would still be habitable
by beings that thrive in the interior of the planet.

The habitable zone of bacteria thriving from chemical
reactions in a planet's interior is the whole universe.

Including our own planet.

Thomas Gold proposed that, but nobody knows. It is very
difficult to go there. We know nothing of the biosphere
just 10 Km below our feets.