Life on Titan? Stand far back and hold your nose!

If life has evolved on Sat­urn’s frig­id moon, Ti­tan, it would be strange, smelly—and po­tent­ial­ly ex­plo­sive, new re­search sug­gests.

The con­clu­sions come from as­tro­bi­ol­o­gist Wil­liam Bains, who pre­s­ents his re­search at the Na­tional As­tron­o­my Meet­ing in Glas­gow, Scot­land on April 13.

“Hol­ly­wood would have prob­lems with these al­iens,” said Bains. “Beam one on­to the Star­ship En­ter­prise and it would boil and then burst in­to flames, and the fumes would kill eve­ry­one in range. Even a ti­ny whiff of its breath would smell un­be­lievably hor­ri­ble.

World Science for more