NASA astrobiologists must get real.
No planet has life until proven otherwise.

Secular scientists, often following NASA press releases, continue to titillate the public about possible life on planets or moons. It’s OK to look, but until evidence is found, they are dead worlds and should be described as such.

NASA Research Shows Path Toward Protocells on Titan (NASA, 14 July 2025). Reporter Aaron Gronstal is hallucinating. He envisions molecules magically coming together like leprechauns in the frozen wastes of Titan starting an epic journey toward life. “NASA research has shown that cell-like compartments called vesicles could form naturally in the lakes of Saturn’s moon Titan,” he teases, ramping up the perhapsimaybecouldness index far beyond the limits of scientific modesty. He knows better. Titan is all ice, with a surface -290° F, with polar lakes of hydrocarbons. Those lakes are as far from life as oil slicks are from birds dying on a polluted beach after an oil spill. Oh, he thinks, but maybe there could be life as we do not know it!

Titan is the only world apart from Earth that is known to have liquid on its surface. However, Titan’s lakes and seas are not filled with water. Instead, they contain liquid hydrocarbons like ethane and methane.

On Earth, liquid water is thought to have been essential for the origin of life as we know it. Many astrobiologists have wondered whether Titan’s liquids could also provide an environment for the formation of the molecules required for life – either as we know it or perhaps as we don’t know it – to take hold there.

Who’s “we,” paleface? Aaron might shift the blame for this wandering wondering to the clueless atheists who recently published in the International Journal of Astrobiology dreaming on company time that “stable vesicles might form on Titan” that might represent a step toward what life needs someday over the rainbow. When you wish upon a tar, makes no difference who you are; you are not doing science when you think that “All I have to do is dream, dream, dream.”

I can make it shine, drinking that Dar-wine
Anytime, night or day
Only trouble is— gee whiz,
I’m dreamin’ my data away.

Get real; such “vesicles” are little more than soap-like bubbles in an oil slick on an icy wasteland. Speaking of wastelands: Hey, Sean Duffy (Trump’s choice for new NASA Director), want to hear where you could cut some waste, fraud, and abuse? Members of the Bio-Astrology department could use new quarters. Maybe they could study real biology at Alligator Alcatraz.

The ocean on Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus has the right pH for life — barely (Space.com, 8 July 2025).
The Oceans on Enceladus Are Highly Alkaline (Universe Today, 30 June 2025).
These reporters should be sobbing over reports about Enceladus—one of NASA’s key targets for astrobiology—that have measured the pH of its water to be between 10.1 and 11.6, something like Milk of Magnesia or window cleaner. The scientists publishing at arXiv (26 June) say their findings indicate that the water in the moon’s geyser plumes is “significantly more alkaline than current estimates (~8-9) of the pH of Enceladus’s ocean.”

Instead, Keith Cooper (Space.com) holds out hope, quoting scientists who claim, “We know that some microbes on Earth can tolerate the range of pH found on Enceladus.” Laurence Tognetti (Universe Today) says the only way to know is to send another mission to Enceladus, like the proposed Enceladus Orbilander, now in the conception stage.

This will include conducing in-depth analyses of Enceladus’ plumes and land a probe on Enceladus’ surface with the goal of ascertaining the habitability of this small moon and whether there’s life as we know it.

What new discoveries about the pH level, and other aspects, of Enceladus’ subsurface ocean will researchers make in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science! [sic]

In the meantime, then, stop dreaming. Enceladus, by default, is a dead wasteland as alkaline as ammonia cleaning solution. Stop titillating the public with Possibility Thinking, and tell the truth as we know it— the real Enceladus, and nothing but the Enceladus.

Life on Venus? UK probe could reveal the answer (Royal Astronomical Society, 7 July 2025). The royal jazz at UK are bosom buddies with NASA’s bio-astrologers in spirit and in sleuth. Here, they try to one-up their competitors across the pond with dreams about Venus. (“Bosom buddies” I said? Sorry about that. Titan and Venus are not compatible anyway). Of all places to not look for life, the hell-hole of Venus should top the list, with its surface hot enough to melt lead and its clouds dripping with sulfuric acid.

Over the past five years researchers have detected the presence of two potential biomarkers – the gases phosphine and ammonia – which on Earth can only be produced by biological activity and industrial processes.

This is patently false. Ammonia (NH₃) is common in the solar system but it is dead by itself. And the claims of phosphine (PH₃), a smelly, explosive, poisonous gas that is equally dead by itself, were rejected shortly after they were reported.

Even if phosphine were detected, good science would demand searching first for non-biological processes capable of producing it instead of jumping to the conclusion that life exists out there. Phosphine never generates life. It’s a toxic waste product of some living organisms.

Where does one stop when looking for biomarkers? Logically, a biomarker is a substance that cannot possibly be explained by anything other than life. Astrobiologists are way too quick on the draw. They have considered polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (e.g., tailpipe soot) as biomarkers. They have considered phosphine as a biomarker. Getting even more ridiculous, their list of biomarkers has included methane, carbon dioxide, water, oxygen and hydrogen. Why stop there? Maybe electrons, protons, or quarks should be added to the list of biomarkers.

We at CEH would like to suggest a very clear biomarker: complex specified information, which is a marker of intelligence. At least the SETI folks are more rigorous on this point. To conclude extraterrestrial intelligence, they would have to rule out anything that could be produced by chance or natural law. That’s the Design Filter promoted by the Intelligent Design Community. SETI is an I.D. project. Trouble is, as Darwinists and atheists that most of them are, they have no more evidence that they will accept than the bio-astrologers do.

NASA and its bio-astrologers should, if wanting to be scientific about life, conclude from the evidence available to all people the existence of a Creator of high intelligence and power (Romans 1:18-23) who brought forth a finely-tuned universe and created Earth to be inhabited (Isaiah 45:18-19) by exceptional living beings. That they do not is a reflection of their religious worldview, not the evidence.

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