ORIGIN, and proliferation of life seems to be a ‘simple’ work of nature; what it depends on are three main factors: the presence of water, reasonably safe distance from the Sun, and length of time in terms of many hundreds of million years.

Tall order? Let us examine the case of Titan, the second largest moon of the Solar System.

There are close to a hundred moons in the Solar System. Some are too small and tiny to be billed as moons. In fact, these are so small that they are not even round. Their gravity has never been enough to press them into a round shape. They are, sort of, oblong, elongated and rather shapeless. They go around the Sun not in planet-like smoothness, but hurtle awkwardly. Yet they spin on their ‘axis’ and reflect various quantity of light as they spin gingerly. In astronomy this is called ‘albedo’.

A large proportion of moons are of the same variety, that is, not possessing a shape that can be defined one way or the other. Why go too far in the search for such bodies? Phobos and Deimos, the two moons of planet Mars offer the best example. They are not really moons, but captured asteroids believing themselves to be moons. Much like some of us pretend to be what we really are not!

Of the larger bodies, Ganymede is noteworthy. It is the biggest of all moons of the Solar System. It belongs to the Jovian family: the four moons of Jupiter first discovered by the grand old man of science: Galileo Galilae in the fateful year of 1610A D, that very nearly destroyed his waning life but not his formidable reputation. Titan is the next in line, being just a bit smaller than Ganymede, though no less important.

Titan is 5,150km across. It is just a bit larger than planet Mercury. It is 12,220,000km away from the master planet, Saturn. Titan spins on its axis once in about 16 days. Through a large telescope it is but a tiny dot of light. No bigger. But the atmosphere is thick and never ever reveals anything about the surface features. But you must know where to look for it. Nearly all bodies of Solar System ‘operate’ in a narrow region of the sky, called, the Ecliptic. To find it just know the route, or passage that planets occupy in the sky. Most moons and all planets operate within the 231/2 degrees passage. So, with a little sustained work preferably with the help of a star map, and a pair of good binoculars your work is cut out for you. Just follow the route of the Sun, moon or any planet. Very soon you will be an acknowledged astronomer!

As is well known, Titans (plural) were gods before being ‘dethroned’ by the Hellenic (Greek) gods. They had many children, many of them have been retained by astronomy and named after many moons which you will come across in due course of time. It is customary for a people to name their scientific discoveries and inventions after the gods of yore. The west does it after the Greek gods, the others do it according to their culture. We do it after the Arab heroes. So with names of moons of Solar System.

The atmosphere of Titan is far too thick to have harboured any life for a billion years or so. That is enough time for life to have evolved and proliferated ‘moon wide’’. Or enough time to rule it out. Perhaps forever. Gasses that prevail on Titan are hostile, not suitable for life. The haze on the planet is thick and wrapped in a thick layer of impenetrable fog. It contains about three per cent methane, 85 per cent nitrogen and 12 per cent Argon. Although its atmosphere is 1.6 times thicker than the Earth, that really would not matter when it comes to life. What matters is that there is no oxygen for the kind of life we are familiar with. What matters more is that the moon is too cold to harbour any life. Just imagine that it is twice as distant from the Sun as Ganymede is, which makes it frozen to the core.

The presence of nitrogen is a bit baffling. We know that Ammonia is in abundance in the outer Solar System. Therefore, much of it came from the little bodies that struck on its surface over billions of years of its existence. Titan outgassed Ammonia, which in the course of time, sunlight broke it up, hydrogen leaked into space, leaving behind nitrogen.

Assuming from other nearby planets and moons, we can safely arrive at the conclusion that the surface of Titan is heavily marked with craters all over. Titan is cold. So cold that its molecules move far too slowly for them to escape into space and be lost forever. It is -290F. There could be oceans of methane. It is estimated that these are about one kilometre deep. You never know! More time and research will confirm this. Organic compounds cover the pungent-smelling surface about 1km thick. Organic molecules are common in living things on Earth. You may define an organic compound as any molecule with carbon backbone!

The story of planets and/or moons is as varied, different and as strange as can be. No two bodies are similar. That is what surprises me above all. Size, heat, distance, pressure and gravity play individual and strange parts. Just think of Titan: there could be places, dry enough, where deep and long crevices have drawn wedges hundreds of kilometres long, many kilometres deep. The reason is that ice inside these wedges have become so hard, to have expanded these crevices beyond belief!

So much for one of the Solar System’s wonder of wonders. Next we shall discuss all the other moons of the system. So long! Goodbye and God bless.