ABSTRACT
Liquid water is ubiquitous in our Solar System and likely occurs in various extraterrestrial locations such as the Martian subsurface, water-rich clouds at Venus, the putative subsurface ocean of Jupiter's satellite Europa, and in ammonia-water puddles on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan. Given the presence of a suitable solvent (such as liquid water), an energy source, and the availability of organic molecules, all of these localities are potentially habitable zones that could be associated with microbial life. Titan is of special interest because its environment resembles early Earth conditions in many ways, and because the presence of liquid hydrocarbons on its surface opens up the possibility for the existence of organisms that are based on a biochemistry that is very different from the one case of life with which we are familiar with.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Dr. Dirk Schulze-Makuch is an Associate Professor at Washington State University. His research experience is centered on the interactions of organisms with their aqueous environment, which he obtained during his previous positions as Senior Project Hydrogeologist at Envirogen, Inc. (Princeton Research Center) and as Ass. Professor at the University of Texas at El Paso. Dirk’s most recent accomplishment is the publication of the book “Life in the Universe: Expectations and Constraints” (Springer Publ., Berlin, 2004, 2006) along with many refereed papers in international journals such as Astrobiology, Planetary Space and Sciences, Journal of Geophysical Research - Planets, Ground Water, Geomicrobiology Journal, Journal of Hydrology, Origin of Life and Evolution of Biospheres etc; more than 50 papers total in the last 6 years.