NASA’s Mission to Titan Could Reveal Chemistry Leading to Life
Written by Reananda Hidayat PermonoCompleted Master of Science - MS, Petroleum Geology from Curtin University, Perth, Australia.
NASA will launch a new mission to Titan, Saturn’s giant moon, in 2027 and begin the Dragonfly mission when it arrives in the mid-2030s.
The Dragonfly mission will carry the Dragonfly Mass Spectrometer (DraMS) instrument to help scientists to explore Titan.
The mission could bring a new understanding of the development of life.
It may also give some new sights on the kinds of chemical steps on Earth that led to the formation of life or prebiotic chemistry.
Titan is a great place to learn prebiotic chemistry since it has an abundant carbon-rich chemistry complex.
Besides, Saturn’s moon has an interior ocean and past presence of water on the surface.
Perhaps, NASA could also study the potential habitability of an extraterrestrial environment.
DraMS instrument will assist researchers back on Earth to remotely study the chemical element of the Titanian surface.
Dr. Melissa Trainer from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center explains the agency wants to know the importance of some types of chemistry for early pre-biochemical systems on Earth.
Trainer leads the DraMS instrument that will scan samples from Titan’s surface for evidence of prebiotic chemistry.
Therefore, the Dragonfly rotorcraft will fly on Titan’s low gravity and dense atmosphere spread as far as several miles apart.
It will give NASA proper access to samples in environments with various geologic histories.