Season 5 of "For All Mankind" had a major plot with the search for life on Titan. Astronaut Kelly Baldwin and crew arrived there and found something apparently bioluminescent in a pond. Following some analysis (the instruments used weren't entirely clear-- they looked almost like a thermal cycler and a spectrophotometer inside a containment hood, but I can imagine they were something else, especially in this alternate timeline), they found some motile microbes. Amazing! This is great science-- we're far more likely to find microbial life on another world than something that looks even remotely like us.
Kelly exclaimed, "These cells, their structure's based on methane, not carbon like Earth." On the one hand, that's really interesting because it suggests, as Kelly later notes, that this life likely formed completely independent of life on Earth, and implies that there may be several independent origins of life throughout the galaxy. On the other, the verbiage here is confusing. Methane is a simple hydrocarbon, with formula CH4:
I think what Kelly MEANT to say was not about structure and carbon, but instead, that the cells use liquid methane as a SOLVENT instead of WATER. This would make a lot of sense-- there's lots of methane on Titan, in both liquid and gaseous form because of the low temperature. The possibility for methanogenic life on Titan has been suggested in the scientific literature, and is something that NASA actively considers.
Anyway, let's applaud the show for thinking CORRECTLY about alternate life being microbial and thinking CREATIVELY (in a largely correct scientific framework) about it being methanogenic, and not worry about the small verbiage slip. Kudos to all who worked on the season, and looking forward to the final season soon!
