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Discover Science Podcast: Sarah Hörst on life as we do not know it

Atmospheric chemist and a leading researcher of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, talks with physics and astronomy alum Donna dePolo and astrobiology professor Carlos Marsical  

Titan is Saturn's largest moon and is the subject of distinguished atmospheric chemist Sarah Hörst's research. The distant moon is considered to be one of the most Earth-like worlds in the solar system, and its potential to host life is the topic of conversation in this episode of Discover Science.

Hörst is an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and an adjunct astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute. Hörst is also part of the team leading NASA’s Dragonfly mission – a rotorcraft-lander expedition to Titan's surface. 

Hörst speaks with alumna Donna dePolo and Associate Professor Carlos Mariscal.

DePolo graduated in 2021 with degrees in astronomy and physics and was also a successful Wolf Pack athlete as a member of the swim team. As an undergraduate, dePolo published research titled "The flickering radio jet from the quiescent black hole X-ray binary A0620-00" with Assistant Professor of Physics Richard Plotkin.

Mariscal is an associate professor of philosophy interested in understanding the origin of life, the nature of extreme organisms, and what we can know about life in the universe. Mariscal is faculty in the Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology graduate program where he works in areas related to the evolution, origin, and distribution of life in the universe, a field known as astrobiology.

The Discover Science podcast is recorded in the Reynolds School of Journalism Radio Studio. Past episodes have been produced in partnership with the Reynolds School's Hitchcock Project for Visualizing Science.

Conversation highlights: quotes from Hörst

"Well, first of all, all chemistry is interesting. So that's all I’ve got to say about that."

"Is it possible that life exists that does not use liquid water as a solvent or transport medium? Is there life that is not based on carbon the way life on Earth is? Titan helps us answer that question because on the surface we have huge lakes and seas made out of methane and ethane. If life could figure out how to use methane and ethane, we have one place here in the solar system where we have a non-water liquid sitting there that life could potentially take advantage of."

"I would be slightly disappointed if [life on Titan] was water-based, to be completely honest. I mean, you have this thing sitting right here where you can be really, really weird. And instead, Titan's like, No, I'm cool with the water. [...] I want there to be weird little Titan fish that are living in the methane lakes because that would be really cool."

"I really expect when we get to the surface with Dragonfly that we are going to find some substantially weird chemistry. And it's going to be very frustrating because I predict we're going to have to spend a lot of time trying to prove that the weird chemistry is not life."

"You hear a lot of, 'we need to go to Mars or wherever to protect humans.' Let me tell you, as a planetary scientist, Earth is really our only good option. All of the other planets really desperately want to kill you in a whole bunch of different ways. This is the only one that is even remotely hospitable to us. And so it's incumbent on us to actually keep it hospitable and habitable because the other options are just not a good idea."

About the Discover Science lecture series

The Discover Science podcast is an offshoot of the public lecture series by the same name. The Discover Science Lecture Series was founded by the College of Science in 2010, with the goal of bringing the country's top scientists to the University to share their knowledge, research and wisdom with the community.

"Science encompasses a wonderfully diverse collection of explorations into the unknown. We invite science lovers and the science-curious to join us and experience the extent of the science universe as the best scientists on the planet visit the University of Nevada, Reno for our Discover Science Lecture Series," Jeff Thompson, executive vice president and provost of the University and founder of the Discover Science Lecture Series, said.

Past speakers in the series include astrophysicists Michio Kaku and Neil deGrasse Tyson; Robert Ballard, who discovered the wreck of the Titanic; and Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Original source can be found here.