God what a fucking leap from the actual results of the study to that article title. The only thing the study indicated with even the barest hint of significance is that there is probably only a very limited amount of glycine being transported from the surface to the interior ocean. That's it.
I think the most plausible takeaway is that, assuming this study is "correct", if a process would only allow a few kg of life at planetary scale then that process is not what life would rely on in that environment.
I hope there will be sirens... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sirens_of_Titan
Are bolide impact events the only possible mechanism for communication between ice crust and subsurface ocean? Is there no analogue to tectonism on Titan ice crust, to subduct nutrient rich ice?
I'm interested that their conclusion -- that Saturn could only support tiny life forms such as bacteria -- is not dependent in any way on the distance from Titan to the Sun.
Am I wrong in thinking that any life must require a steady input of energy, and that this must come from either solar energy or geothermal energy? Quick Googling says that Titan's core isn't known for sure, but probably isn't very hot.
If Titan's life were dependent of solar energy, wouldn't it's distance from the Sun imply very little energy to go around, and so very unlikely to have large organisms?
> The researchers specifically focused on one organic molecule, glycine, the simplest of all known amino acids.
This is such a goofy assumption. That any life on Titan would use the exact same amino acids as earth-based life. If you have no clue whether something is possible, sometimes it's better to predict nothing at all.
As a treat
How do they know that there wasn't already abundant amino acids in the ocean before accounting for current transfer?
> "Our new study shows that this supply may only be sufficient to sustain a very small population of microbes weighing a total of only a few kilograms at most – equivalent to the mass of a small dog," Affholder said. "Such a tiny biosphere would average less than one cell per liter of water over Titan's entire vast ocean."
Assuming for a moment that some life does exist in the subsurface ocean, I imagine it would be most likely that you would then expect to find very, very rare, but highly concentrated pockets of life?
Unfortunately I couldn't read the linked study because I was stuck in an endless CAPTCHA loop of trying to find an image of a refrigerator among a varying set of only helicopters, ships, and avocados. I feel absurd just writing that.