Edging Away

I was always skeptical of the claim that Titan’s atmosphere might be rather similar to Earth’s early air, and thus might yield clues regarding the evolution of life. The claim had that desperate, please-save-our-budget-from-ignorant-Congressmen edge to it that NASA has perfected into an art. Now others are more open in their skepticism:

Well, you can forget that, says Bruce Jakosky, of the University of Colorado. "The reasons we originally looked to Titan are long gone. The putative reducing atmosphere of the early Earth -- one that was oxygen poor and hydrogen rich -- is no longer in fashion." Titan is its own world, and not a time capsule of our own.