Saturn’s moon Titan may be more alive with possibilities than we thought. New NASA research suggests that in Titan’s freezing methane and ethane lakes, simple molecules could naturally arrange themselves into vesicles—tiny bubble-like structures that mimic the first steps toward life. These compartments, born from splashing droplets and complex chemistry in Titan’s atmosphere, could act like primitive cell walls.

NASA research has shown that cell-like compartments called vesicles could form naturally in the lakes of Saturn’s moon Titan.

Titan is the only world apart from Earth that is known to have liquid on its surface. However, Titan’s lakes and seas are not filled with water. Instead, they contain liquid hydrocarbons like ethane and methane.

What happens when you hurl molecules faster than sound through a vacuum chamber nearly as cold as space itself? At the University of Missouri, researchers are finding out—and discovering new ways to detect molecules under extreme conditions.

The discovery could one day help chemists unravel the mysteries of astrochemistry, offering new clues about what the universe is made of, how stars and planets form and even where life originated.

In a recent study published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry A, Mizzou faculty member Arthur Suits and doctoral student Yanan Liu fired a laser at methane gas molecules moving faster than the speed of sound in a vacuum chamber at roughly −430°F, close to the temperature in parts of outer space.