The long-ago impact that created this 80-kilometer (50-mile) wide crater melted water ice, which mixed with organic molecules. From there, Dragonfly will conduct dozens of reconnaissance flights, first investigating the organics-based grains that make up the dunes, then flying farther afield to approach and enter Selk Crater. A Dragonfly on Titanĭragonfly, an eight-rotor, Curiosity-size drone, will launch in 2026 for an eight-year trajectory through the solar system before landing on Titan’s sand dunes in 2034. Now, NASA has announced that its next New Frontiers mission, led by Elizabeth “Zibi” Turtle (Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory), will let us see this exotic world as we’ve never done before. This environment holds all the ingredients for life - water, organic molecules, and energy - that were present on early Earth. An opaque atmosphere enshrouds a freezing-cold world where methane cycles through clouds, precipitation, and rivers and lakes in the same way that water does on Earth. Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, has long tantalized us from afar. Artist rendering of Dragonfly on Titan’s surface. NASA has selected its next New Frontiers mission: Dragonfly, a rover-sized drone will begin ‘coptering around Titan in 2034.
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