Complete transcript available.
Universal Production Music: “Perpetual Resonance” by Lee John Gretton [PRS]
Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel and Facebook.
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Watch this video on NASA Goddard’s Instagram Reels.
", "items": [ { "id": 504163, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 1195726, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a014900/a014951/Titan-Vesicles-Thumbnail-VERT_print.jpg", "filename": "Titan-Vesicles-Thumbnail-VERT_print.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "VERTICAL VIDEO – Discover how rainfall on Titan might provide the energy to form primitive, cell-like structures called vesicles.Watch this video on NASA Goddard’s Instagram Reels.", "width": 1024, "height": 1820, "pixels": 1863680 } }, { "id": 504161, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 1195724, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a014900/a014951/Titan-Vesicles-Thumbnail-VERT.jpg", "filename": "Titan-Vesicles-Thumbnail-VERT.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "VERTICAL VIDEO – Discover how rainfall on Titan might provide the energy to form primitive, cell-like structures called vesicles.Watch this video on NASA Goddard’s Instagram Reels.", "width": 1080, "height": 1920, "pixels": 2073600 } }, { "id": 504162, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 1195725, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a014900/a014951/Titan-Vesicles-Thumbnail-VERT.png", "filename": "Titan-Vesicles-Thumbnail-VERT.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "VERTICAL VIDEO – Discover how rainfall on Titan might provide the energy to form primitive, cell-like structures called vesicles.Watch this video on NASA Goddard’s Instagram Reels.", "width": 1080, "height": 1920, "pixels": 2073600 } }, { "id": 504160, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 1195723, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a014900/a014951/14951_Titan_Vesicles_Explainer_VERT_Small.mp4", "filename": "14951_Titan_Vesicles_Explainer_VERT_Small.mp4", "media_type": "Movie", "alt_text": "VERTICAL VIDEO – Discover how rainfall on Titan might provide the energy to form primitive, cell-like structures called vesicles.Watch this video on NASA Goddard’s Instagram Reels.", "width": 1080, "height": 1920, "pixels": 2073600 } }, { "id": 504159, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 1195722, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a014900/a014951/14951_Titan_Vesicles_Explainer_VERT.mp4", "filename": "14951_Titan_Vesicles_Explainer_VERT.mp4", "media_type": "Movie", "alt_text": "VERTICAL VIDEO – Discover how rainfall on Titan might provide the energy to form primitive, cell-like structures called vesicles.Watch this video on NASA Goddard’s Instagram Reels.", "width": 1080, "height": 1920, "pixels": 2073600 } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 379445, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14951/#media_group_379445", "widget": "Basic text", "title": "For More Information", "caption": "", "description": "See [NASA.gov](https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/planetary-science/astrobiology/path-toward-protocells-on-titan/)", "items": [], "extra_data": {} } ], "studio": "gms", "funding_sources": [ "ESE" ], "credits": [ { "role": "Producer", "people": [ { "name": "Dan Gallagher", "employer": "eMITS" } ] }, { "role": "Scientist", "people": [ { "name": "Christian Mayer", "employer": "Universität Duisburg-Essen" }, { "name": "Conor Nixon", "employer": "NASA/GSFC" } ] }, { "role": "Host", "people": [ { "name": "Kathryn Mersmann", "employer": "NASA/GSFC" } ] }, { "role": "Animator", "people": [ { "name": "Kim Dongjae", "employer": "eMITS" }, { "name": "Jenny McElligott", "employer": "eMITS" }, { "name": "Wes D. 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As large raindrops pelt the lakes, they could stir up this floating “pond scum” to form spherical droplets of methane coated in a bilayer of amphiphiles – structures called vesicles that resemble cell membranes on Earth.Although such vesicles have yet to be detected on Titan, a 2025 study by Christian Mayer and NASA scientist Conor Nixon lays out the process for their formation and evolution, and it proposes a mechanism for their discovery by a future mission to Titan. The paper also proposes that different mixtures of amphiphiles could stabilize vesicles and lead to the evolution of simple protocells on Titan. || ", "release_date": "2026-01-14T10:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2026-01-15T21:08:15.267311-05:00", "main_image": { "id": 1195773, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a020000/a020400/a020411/3-Acrylonitrile-Molecule-Thumbnail_print.jpg", "filename": "3-Acrylonitrile-Molecule-Thumbnail_print.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Acrylonitrile molecules drift through Titan’s atmosphere. 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