A multi-rotor vehicle – with eight rotors and drone-like flying capabilities – will stay on Titan’s surface for 2.7 years studying possible forms of life. As Titan’s atmosphere is similar to the early stages of Earth, it’ll look for prebiotic chemical processes to try and unlock mysteries of the origin of life. NASA explained Dragonfly will travel to different environments to study liquids and organic materials: Dragonfly has chosen a calm weather period to land, along with a safe initial landing site, and scientifically interesting targets based on the data from NASA’s earlier mission to Saturn, Cassini. It will first land at the equatorial “Shangri-La” dune fields, a terrain very similar to the linear dunes in Namibia. Then it’ll travel a total of 175km consisting of short, 8km flights, and reach the Selk impact crater to study past evidence of liquid water and organics. NASA’s Administrator, Jim Bridenstine, said that just a few years ago this mission wouldn’t have been possible, but now the team is ready. Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s Associate Administrator for Science, said that Dragonfly’s observations can unlock new secrets to the origin of life: The mission will be led by Elizabeth Turtle, who is based at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. We hope that this mission can unearth new and amazing factors about life’s origin. Read more about NASA’s announcement here. Interested in learning more about Titan? Head here.
