New experimental results have cast doubt on earlier proposals suggesting that spherical, cell-like membranes could form in the methane lakes of Saturn’s largest moon. Through results published in Science Advances, Tuan Vu and Robert Hodyss at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory suggest that exobiologists will likely need to explore alternative routes when considering the possibility of life on Titan.

Oxygen has been the most important gas in our search for life among the cosmos thus far. On Earth, we have it in abundance because it is produced by biological synthesis. But that might not be the case on other planets, so even if we do find a very clear high oxygen signal in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, it might not be a clear indication that life exists there. A new paper, available in pre-print on arXiv, by Margaret Turcotte Seavey and a team of researchers from institutions like the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Johns Hopkins University, adds some additional context to what else might be going on in those atmospheres. In particular, they note that if there’s even a little bit of water vapor, it can make a big difference in whether a lifeless rock looks like a living, thriving world.

One particularly well-known fact about the moon is that it doesn’t have much of a magnetosphere to speak of. There’s no blanket to protect it from the solar wind ravaging its surface, blowing away its atmosphere and charging the notoriously dangerous dust particles that make up its regolith. However, scientists have also known for around 60 years that some parts of the moon do experience sudden spikes in a magnetic field—some of which are up to 10 times stronger than the background magnetization.