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What will NASA’s mission to Saturn’s moon Titan look like in search of the origin of life?

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THE NASA mission TO Titan, the giant moon of Saturnis called Dragonfly and could become one of the most important in history if it achieves its goal: Discover the chemistry that gave rise to life.

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Just the mission of the US space agency will carry a mass spectrometer (DraMS)designed to analyze the detailed chemical composition of this celestial body.

NASA’s key mission objective

Another of the mission objectives to this moon, which will be released in 2027is also to shed some light on prebiotic chemistrythe chemical pathways that occurred on the early Earth and ultimately led to the formation of life, as reported days ago.

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NASA's Dragonfly mission to Saturn's moon Titan will launch in 2027.

NASA’s Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s moon Titan will launch in 2027.

“We want to know if the kind of chemistry that might be important for Earth’s early prebiochemical systems is occurring on Titan,” he explained. Melissa Trainer, NASA astrobiologistand it spreads RT.

He Dragonfly robotic helicopter (Dragonfly) will take advantage of Titan’s low gravity and dense atmosphere to collect samples from different points of interest on the surface, separated by several kilometers.

A tool for studying

In turn, they explain that the DraMS tool is designed to examine on site material samples taken from Dragonfly.

Titan's colorful globe passes in front of the planet and its rings in this true-color snapshot taken by the Cassini spacecraft.  Photo: NASA/JHU-APL

Titan’s colorful globe passes in front of the planet and its rings in this true-color snapshot taken by the Cassini spacecraft. Photo: NASA/JHU-APL

Furthermore, it will allow in the permanent research of the conquest of space and its secrets, to study its chemical composition from a distance.

Trainer’s remarks: “DraMS is designed to look at organic molecules that may be present on Titan, their composition and distribution in the different surface environments”.

Dragonfly scientists didn’t want to “reinvent the wheel” when looking for organic compounds on Titan, so they relied on established methods that they have already been applied to Mars and other places.

“This design has given us a very flexible tool, which can adapt to different types of surface samples“, they stand out.

This would be there

This would be the landing of “robotic dragonflies” on Saturn’s moon. Illustration: NASA/JHU-APL

Information on the Dragonfly mission

Dragonfly It will be the fourth mission of NASA’s New Frontiers program.

As we said, its launch is scheduled for 2027 and reach Saturn’s moon Titan in the mid-2030s.

Dragonfly is, as the English name indicates, a dragonfly… but robotic.

Similar to what happens with Ingenuity on Marsit should fly over the surface of Titan to collect all kinds of data and send it to Earth.

Saturn has dozens of moons, one of which is Titan.

Saturn has dozens of moons, one of which is Titan.

It is larger than Ingenuity and will not be accompanied by a rover as is the case with its analogue on the red planet.

It must be remembered that Saturn has 53 moons They don’t even have a name. Also, again there are 29 more moons to be confirmed.

Source: Clarin

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