The search for solar system and extrasolar environments containing liquid water is well underway, and with some success (Europa, Enceladus). But what about environments in which organics and energy are available, and the liquid medium is non-aqueous? Are such environments of interest as hosts for very exotic kinds of biochemistries?
This short course will review one such well-known environment and explore the techniques by which one might search for a kind of life whose basic biochemistry is poorly or not known.
Short Course Presentations
| Speaker | Affiliation | Presentation |
|---|---|---|
| R. Hodyss | JPL/Caltech | Escape from Waterworld: Chemistry in Hydrocarbons and Supercritical Carbon Dioxide (17.3 MB .pdf) (3.6 MB .pdf) |
| N. V. Hud | Georgia Tech | Is Water Necessary for the Origin and Evolution of an RNA World? A Self-Assembly Approach to RNA: The Challenges and Advantages of Water (10.4 MB .pdf) |
| J. Lunine | Cornell University | Titan: The Only Non-Aqueous Bodies of Liquid in the Solar System… or How we know what we know about the clouds, streams, rivers, lakes and seas of Titan (8 MB .pdf) |
| C. Sotin | JPL/Caltech | Planetary Environments Where Non-Aqueous Liquids May Be Present (1.15 MB .pdf) |
