Excerpt from paper: Understanding the rate coefficients and branching of reactions in extraterrestrial atmospheres is of vital importance because it allows us to build a more complete picture of the overall chemical makeup and photochemical behavior in these alien environments. Gaining insight into these exotic reactions is crucial not only for understanding extraterrestrial environments, but also for providing a better understanding of reactions on Earth. The atmosphere of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, is notably rich in nitrogen compounds and chemical reactions, which makes it an immensely important environment to study.1 Titan’s reducing atmosphere resembles that of early Earth (the first one billion years of Earth’s existence). By analyzing the chemical composition of meteorites, which offer an appropriate approximation of the materials that were present on early Earth, we can conclude that early Earth also had a reducing atmosphere before developing the oxidizing atmosphere that is prevalent today. Investigating Titan’s atmospheric chemistry provides a more nuanced understanding of chemical processes that once occurred on our home planet, and possibly the origins of life..
