We are possibly witnessing the birth of life on Titan even as we speak.
Ask any origin-of-life researcher why life evolved on Earth. They'll probably give you a list of reasons, with the Earth's location in the Goldilocks Zone around the Sun usually appearing at the top of that list.
The Goldilocks Zone offers the perfect conditions, especially in terms of temperature, for life to originate and thrive.
In the case of the Solar System, this region falls between the orbits of Venus and Mars. Venus, Earth, and Mars are the only planets that fall in this habitable zone.
It's another matter that Venus and Mars don't support life because of other reasons that have little to do with their location.
Any planet farther than Mars and closer than Venus cannot support life.
That's until Titan, Saturn's moon, decided that it's not going to be gaslit by bipedal primates on a far-off rock!
Image Credits: How Does The Surface Of Moon 'Titan' Looks Like? » Space Exploration
The Prebiotic Chemistry of Titan
Titan's atmosphere is mainly composed of nitrogen (~98%) with smaller amounts of methane (~1.4%) and trace gases like hydrogen, argon, and carbon monoxide.
However, solar radiation and cosmic rays are breaking methane into smaller molecules, which are further reacting with each other to form a variety of other complex compounds like ethane, benzene, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, etc.
These complex compounds are further undergoing reactions to form even more complex compounds like amino acids, which you may know as building blocks of proteins!
Mind you, all of this is happening at temperatures in the vicinity of -179°C or -290°F.
Water freezes at 0°C, and the temperature on Titan is frigid -179°C. Yet, it has lakes, rivers, and even seas all over it. But, they're all composed of liquid methane and ethane. Not water!
And it's supporting this complex organic chemistry that's the precursor to life.
To be clear, Titan is far from a crucible for life yet. But scientists believe that its chemistry today is remarkably similar to that of early Earth before life originated here.
Even if (and that's a big IF) life originates on Titan, it will probably take many millions of years, if not billions of years, for it to happen.
However, the fact that we are witnessing this prebiotic chemistry in the works so far away from the Goldilocks Zone is freaking crazy!
That opens up the question: how many other planets and moons are out there with conditions to support life - and perhaps even teeming with life - that we've ignored only because we believe their conditions do not support liquid water!
More importantly, the recent discovery of a likely habitable period in Mars's history and Titan's potential to support the origin of life present an exciting possibility. That's at least 2 opportunities besides Earth for life to originate in the Solar System alone.
The odds alone are astronomically small.
Even without the discovery of life in both cases, it radically increases the prevalence of opportunities (conducive conditions) for the origin of life beyond the Solar System. I mean, if liquid water is not so essential for life, I wonder if anything else is.