References for
Mysteries of the Deep
(Odyssey October 2000)

Firsoff, V. A. “Life Beyond the Earth: A Study in Exobiology” Basic Books, Inc, New York, 1963.

Sneath, P. H. A., “Planets and Life,” Funk and Wagnalls, New York, 1970. (Both explore a variety of theoretical chemical bases for life).

Nowick, James S., Qing Feng, Tjama Tjivikua, Pablo Ballester, and Julius Rebek, Jr., “Kinetic Studies of a Self-Replicating System”, Journal of the American Chemical Society 113:8831, 1991. (Demonstrates a synthetic self-replicating chemical system, proof of principle that RNA is not the only way to do this).

Rothschild, Lynn J. “Earth Analogs for Martian Life. Microbes in Evaporites, a New Model System for Life on Mars”, Icarus 88:246, 1990. (Microbes in Antarctic rocks).

Savage, Donald L., James Hartsfield, David Salisbury, “Meteorite Yields Evidence of Primitive Life on Early Mars”, NASA Press Release 96-160 (Wed. 07 Aug 1996).

West, Robert A., Peter H. Smith, “Evidence for Aggregate Particles in the Atmospheres of Titan and Jupiter”, Icarus 90:330, 1991. (Observational evidence for large chemical structures).

Courtin, Regis, Richard Wagener, Christopher P. McKay, John Caldwell, Karl-Heinrich Fricke,, Francois Raulin, Paul Bruston, “UV Spectroscopy of Titan’s Atmosphere, Planetary Organic Chemistry, and Prebiological Synthesis,” Icarus 90:43, 1991.

Thompson, W. Reid, Todd J. Henry, Joel M. Schwartz, B. N. Khare, Carl Sagan, “Plasma Discharge in N2 + CH4 at Low Pressures: Experimental Results and Applications to Titan”, Icarus 90:57, 1991. (Experimental synthesis of tholins -- Sagan and Khare coined the word “tholin”).

Lunine, Jonathan I. “Evolution of the Atmosphere and Surface of Titan” Proceedings of the 24th ESLAB Symposium on the Formation of Stars and Planets, and the Evolution of the Solar System, Friedrichshafen, 17-19 Sept 1990 (ESA SP-315, Nov. 1990)

Lunine, Jonathan I. “Plausible Surface Models for Titan” Proceedings of the 25th ESLAB Symposium on Titan, Toulouse, 9-12 Sept 1991.

Lunine is one of the theorists primarily responsible for the Methane or Ethane ocean theory for Titan. I've omitted a number of observational papers which reported albedos too high for ocean surfaces. However, it was later discovered that Titan's infrared and radar albedos are highly variable, and radar maps made somewhat later show a patchy surface. One theory is that the surface is covered with water-ice “continents” and shallow methane “oceans”. (Earlier methods couldn’t resolve areas on Titan, but measured the whole-disk There is also a theory that computed radar and infrared albedos from methane oceans may have been grossly underestimated, since they were based on “pure” methane, and Titan's oceans may have large quantities of suspended tholins near their surfaces. There were just too many papers to quote them all (and I don’t have all the references), but this is the essence of the arguments.

One of the better theories for the origin of life on Earth involves an initial start as a self-replicating RNA molecule. We still have some biochemical “fossils” that might be attributed to this early stage, such as RNA reverse transcriptase and “ribozymes” or “RNA enzymes” which do jobs we normally associate with proteins, there's also evidence that early nucleic acid formation may have been catalyzed by the presence of clays whose surfaces provided a template or mold for the molecules to grow on.

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