Titan, Saturn's moon, is a prime target in the hunt for extraterrestrial life, and NASA plans to put a flying robot there as part of its newest planetary scientific mission.
The project called Dragonfly will be the first of its type.
NASA plans to launch a car-sized quadcopter in 2026, arrive at its final
destination in 2034, and then fly to several spots hundreds of kilometres
apart. It will be outfitted with devices that can recognise huge organic
compounds.
"The science is persuasive. . . Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's assistant administrator for science, said that the project was ambitious. "I'm sure this is the proper moment to do it right now."
Why Titan?
Titan is as geographically varied as Earth and larger than the planet Mercury. The only surface oceans in the solar system outside those on Earth are found on this big, frigid moon, which also has mountains of ice and a dense atmosphere rich in methane.
On Titan, however, liquid hydrocarbons are sloshing across
the rivers and lakes. If there is water on the moon, scientists believe it is
hidden under the frozen surface of an ocean.
Despite being a very different globe from our own, "we know it contains all of the components that are essential to help life emerge," according to Lori Glaze, head of NASA's planetary research division.
Complex carbon rings and chains on Titan may mimic the first
building blocks of life on Earth since they are essential to many fundamental
biological activities.
According to Glaze, Dragonfly will provide people "the
chance to learn about the mechanisms that existed on early Earth and perhaps
even the circumstances that might support life today."
New Frontiers
The NASA New Frontiers programme, which provides funding for medium-sized planetary scientific initiatives that don't exceed $1 billion USD, has now funded its fourth mission.
It follows in the footsteps of the asteroid-explorer
OSIRIS-REx, the Juno probe, which is presently orbiting Jupiter, and the New
Horizons mission, which just passed by Pluto and the Kuiper belt object MU69.
It was one of the two programme suggestions being thought
about since December 2017. The Comet Astrobiology Exploration Sample Return
(CAESAR) mission, which would have circled Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, was
the other contender.
In November 2038, that spacecraft would have collided with
the enormous space rock, sucked up a sample from its surface, and returned it
to Earth.
Dragonfly will touch down close to Titan's equator amid solid hydrocarbon snowflake dunes. Similar to NASA's daring Mars rovers, it will be fueled by the heat from radioactive plutonium.
However, with eight rotors, it will be able to travel up to
nine miles every hop, which is significantly further than any wheeled robot has
ever been able to.
Elizabeth Turtle, a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Applied
Physics Laboratory and the mission's chief scientist, claimed during a news
conference on Thursday that flying on Titan was actually simpler. The gravity
of that world is weak, yet its atmosphere is thicker than Earth's.
However, the craft must be capable of independent movement. Dragonfly is substantially more complex than a typical drone since it takes 43 minutes for light signals from Earth to reach Titan.
A navigation system had to be created by scientists so that
the spaceship could recognise risks and fly and land on its own.
Where will Dragonfly land?
It will take samples of Titan's hazy atmosphere during in flight and transmit overhead pictures of the ground below. However, the ship will spend the majority of its time searching for biologically significant elements on Earth.
Selk Crater, the location of a historic meteor strike, is
where it will eventually arrive. Here, researchers have discovered signs of
liquid water, organic compounds, and energy that might power chemical
processes.
The audacious design caused NASA to ask two separate teams to review the mission plan and determine if the project could be carried out at the permitted cost, according to Zurbuchen. In the end, the organisation judged that the idea was feasible.
Although this is a novel kind of planet exploration, Turtle pointed out that this technology is already extremely advanced on Earth.
It's innovation, not invention, that we're really doing with
Dragonfly, not invention.
Since 2005, when the Huygens probe peaked through Titan's murky orange clouds to show an incredible picture, NASA hasn't been able to glimpse the surface of the moon. On this odd moon, each Earth-like feature has a distinctly chemically foreign twist.
Titan possesses liquid methane instead of liquid water,
according to research published in the journal Nature. Titan contains frozen
water ice instead of silicate rocks. Titan contains hydrocarbon settling out of
the atmosphere in place of dirt.
Its world is very cold, with an average temperature of minus 290 degrees Fahrenheit (-180 degrees Celsius) on a nice day. It is about 1 billion miles from the sun. More oxygen would cause those plentiful hydrocarbons, which make up the majority of gasoline, to ignite.
Scientists are primarily interested in the existence of all
that methane, a chemical that is typically destroyed by sunlight after a few
million years. Its persistence raises the possibility of an ongoing mechanism
that replenishes the supply of Titan.
With the exception that its clouds are comprised of
hydrocarbon gas and its precipitation is in the form of organic compound rain
and snow, scientists currently think Titan has weather that is quite similar to
that of Earth.
Life as we don’t know it
Turtle said on Thursday that Titan shares similarities with the early Earth, before life developed and permanently altered the planet.
Titan is the ideal chemical laboratory, according to her, to
comprehend the chemistry that went place before chemistry advanced to biology.
A member of Dragonfly's scientific and engineering team named Sarah Hörst from Johns Hopkins University previously compared Titan to a cosmic kitchen where researchers have discovered all the elements necessary for life.
However, as you were not present when they combined, you are in the dark as to why. In 2017, she stated, "When you bake it, you never know what will happen.
The sum of all those parts can be zero. Or, she added, they may be indicators of "life as we don't know it"—a kind of species that relies on hydrocarbons rather than water.
Since the Huygens landing, scientists have discovered even
more molecular treasures, including negatively charged molecules linked to
intricate chemical reactions, rings of hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen that can
be used to build amino acids, and molecules that can group together to form an
envelope that resembles the membranes that surround cells.
According to these broad, overarching categories, Titan is home to everything necessary for life, according to Hörst. At some point, the question simply becomes: Should we go check? ”
This article was originally published by The Washington Post.
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