What kind of life has been nurtured on the satellites of the solar system? The big screen may have already "revealed"

One of the eternal themes of human spaceflight is the search for extraterrestrial life. Is there really extraterrestrial life? What would it look like? The seven planets in the solar system other than the Earth have a smaller and smaller chance of nurturing life. Even Mars, the star seed candidate that was highly anticipated, has not even confirmed extraterrestrial microorganisms after more than a hundred years of exploration. Humans have no choice but to set their search targets on "lower-level" satellites. Perhaps you don't know that as early as the beginning of the 20th century, humans had already "seen" the lively "alien life" on the Earth's satellite, the Moon.

In 1902, the romantic Frenchman Georges Méliès directed a 14-minute black-and-white short film, A Trip to the Moon, which was later reprinted in color. This work can be called the first science fiction film in history. The director used montage techniques and "gorgeous" special effects scenes to show the audience spectacular scenes of lunar life. At that time, Empress Dowager Cixi of China was still in control of the Qing Dynasty.

This sci-fi film is really mind-blowing. Six scientists and explorers boarded a giant cannon and blasted into the sky. The cannonballs and spaceships flew through the sky and finally embedded themselves deeply into the moon's surface, causing the moon to frown in pain. The scientists got off the spaceship and came to the moon's surface. They finally saw alien life, with giant mushrooms growing on the moon. Suddenly, the expedition team was attacked by green-skinned moon people. After a fight, the scientists managed to escape and returned to Earth in triumph!

It is true that the bizarre extraterrestrial life in "A Trip to the Moon" was just the beautiful imagination of the artists of the time about the moon spirits more than a century ago. Today, we already know that the uneven surface of the moon is a forbidden zone for life. The temperature can reach 300℃ during the day and quickly drops to -160℃ at night. There is no atmosphere, no magnetic field, no liquid water, and no Chang'e in the East or Artemis in the West. The moon is undoubtedly a "dead" planet, which is completely different from the earth that is so close. Among the satellites in the solar system, the one that is most similar to the earth is a satellite of Saturn.

In March 1655, Dutch astronomer Huygens discovered a "big guy" in the telescope. It was Titan, the second largest satellite in the solar system. Later, Sir Herschel named it "Titan", describing its sturdy and huge size.

Around 1980, Pioneer 11 and Voyager observed Titan up close for the first time. The thick clouds covered the bright and dark landforms, which aroused human imagination. In 2004, the well-equipped Cassini probe arrived in the Saturn system after a seven-year journey and visited Titan. The sub-probe Huygens successfully landed on Titan.

After more than a decade of unremitting exploration of Titan, scientists exclaimed: "Titan not only has mountains and rivers, but also rains. It has the same atmospheric circulation system as the Earth, just like the primitive Earth!"

The surface of Titan is very complex, with mountains and hills, plains, impact craters, and lakes of liquid methane and ethane... In this bitterly cold place 1.4 billion kilometers away from the sun (ten times that of the Earth), with an average temperature of only -180°C, these landforms are mainly composed of solid ice and various compounds. Titan is the only satellite in the solar system with a stable atmosphere, of which nitrogen accounts for as much as 98.44%. In the thick atmosphere, there are also thunderstorms like on Earth, and methane rain from time to time.

Is there life on Titan?

It is reported that Titan is rich in organic compounds and nitrogen. Cyanide and hydrocarbons can generate nitriles under certain conditions, which are then hydrolyzed by water ice on the planet to generate carboxylic acids and amines, which can also generate amino acids, which are of great significance to life. I wonder if you still remember that the ultimate villain in the popular science fiction film "Avengers" a few years ago, Thanos, was a native Titan giant.

Is Titan the most promising planet in the solar system for nurturing extraterrestrial life? Actually, that title should belong to Europa.

Europa is slightly smaller than the moon. It was first discovered by Galileo in 1610. Under Europa's thick ice layer, there is the most precious thing for the birth of life - liquid water. Moreover, this global ocean, which is 100 kilometers deep, has a total water storage capacity that is more than twice that of the Earth. Due to the strong tidal pull of Jupiter, Europa's core is hot and active, and a large amount of heat energy carries seawater and flows into the ocean from the seabed springs. The Hubble telescope has captured many times that water vapor is spraying out from the cracks in Europa's ice layer.

Imagine the hydrothermal vents deep in our oceans, surrounding the "black chimneys" that supply heat, with bacteria, shellfish, tube worms, and gastropods forming a thriving ecosystem? Life on Europa is likely to follow this model.

In 2013, the United States released a science fiction film "Europa Report" starring Chinese movie star Daniel Wu. This film realistically shows the future human exploration of Europa. At the end of the film, the heroine risked her life to set up the camera and captured a precious scene. It turns out that the overlord that dominates this planet has evolved on the seabed of Europa - the giant octopus. Perhaps everyone is more familiar with its name in the legend - the North Sea giant monster, Kraken.

In imaginative movies and TV shows, we have already seen too many alien creatures. But what about in the real universe? Perhaps, we won’t have to wait too long.

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