Every methane rainstorm on Titan may be performing a primitive chemistry experiment: a 2025 study found a plausible way splashing lake droplets could wrap themselves in organic bilayers, producing hollow structures remarkably similar to the membranes surrounding living cells.

Every methane rainstorm on Titan may be performing a primitive chemistry experiment: a 2025 study found a plausible way splashing lake droplets could wrap themselves in organic bilayers, producing hollow structures remarkably similar to the membranes surrounding living cells.

Imagine a methane storm passing over one of Titan’s dark polar seas. A heavy drop strikes the surface, throws a mist of smaller lake droplets into the orange air, and then disappears into the liquid below. The splash looks like weather. In a 2025 study in the International Journal of Astrobiology, physical chemist Christian Mayer and NASA planetary scientist Conor Nixon argued that it might also be a machine for making membranes. Their proposed …