NASA announced last week that it had selected the Dragonfly mission to explore the prebiotic organic chemistry and look for signs of life on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn and an intriguing ocean world with a hazy atmosphere and methane seas.
This illustration shows NASA’s Dragonfly rotorcraft-lander approaching a site on Titan. Image credit: NASA / JHU-APL.
At 3,200 miles (5,150 km) across, Titan is the second-largest natural satellite in our Solar System, and is larger than the Moon and the planet Mercury.
As it orbits Saturn, Titan is about 886 million miles (1.4 billion km) away from the Sun, about 10 times farther than Earth.
Because it is so far from the Sun, its surface temperature is minus 290 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 179 degrees Celsius). Its surface pressure is also 50% higher than Earth’s.
Titan has a dense, nitrogen-based atmosphere like Earth. Unlike Earth, it has clouds and rain of methane. Other organics are formed in the atmosphere and fall like light snow.
The moon’s weather and surface processes have combined complex organics, energy, and water similar to those that may have sparked life on our planet.
“Titan is unlike any other place in the Solar System, and Dragonfly is like no other mission,” said Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA’s Headquarters in Washington.
“It’s remarkable to think of this rotorcraft flying miles and miles across the organic sand dunes of Saturn’s largest moon, exploring the processes that shape this extraordinary environment.”
“Dragonfly will visit a world filled with a wide variety of organic compounds, which are the building blocks of life and could teach us about the origin of life itself.”
Dragonfly is scheduled to launch in 2026, reaching Titan in 2034.
The Mars rover-size, drone-like vehicle will have eight rotors and will fly to dozens of promising locations on Titan looking for prebiotic chemical processes common on both Titan and Earth.
It will take advantage of Titan’s dense atmosphere to become the first vehicle ever to fly its entire science payload to new places for repeatable and targeted access to surface materials.
During its 2.7-year baseline mission, Dragonfly will explore diverse environments from organic dunes to the floor of an impact crater where liquid water and complex organic materials key to life once existed together for possibly tens of thousands of years.
“With the Dragonfly mission, NASA will once again do what no one else can do,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.
“Visiting this mysterious ocean world could revolutionize what we know about life in the Universe. This cutting-edge mission would have been unthinkable even just a few years ago, but we’re now ready for Dragonfly’s amazing flight.”
