How Dragonfly will support the search for life on an uninhabitable world

Date:
Sun, 01 Jun 2025 21:48:53 +0000

Description:
In July 2028, NASAs next New Frontiers program mission, Dragonfly, will
launch to Saturn atop The post How Dragonfly will support the search for life on an uninhabitable world appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com .

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In July 2028, NASAs next New Frontiers program mission, Dragonfly, will
launch to Saturn atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy. Six years later, it will descend through the thick clouds and atmospheric layers of Saturns largest moon,
Titan finding a world that is both similar to and different from Earth.

While on Titan, Dragonfly will utilize its rotorcraft design to fly around
the methane-filled world and explore Titans chemistry and how life may have begun on Earth. Using a suite of four instruments, the rotorcraft will investigate Titans rivers, canyons, seas, dunes, and more.



Dragonfly isnt a mission to detect life its a mission to investigate the chemistry that came before biology here on Earth. On Titan, we can explore
the chemical processes that may have led to life on Earth without life complicating the picture, said Dragonflys principal investigator, Zibi
Turtle, of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (JHAPL) in Maryland.

As mentioned, Titan is a methane world. Its rivers, lakes, and seas are full of liquid methane. Its atmosphere is comprised of methane and ethane.
However, organic materials lie within its dunes and surface material that may provide scientists with hints into how life formed on Earth.



Many planetary scientists believe Titan is representative of a very early Earth. However, the existence of life on Earth has completely reshaped Earths chemistry hiding the chemical compounds and materials that once made life possible eons ago. See Also Dragonfly Mission Updates Space Science Forum Section L2 Exploration Section Click here to Join L2

Thus, Titan offers a unique opportunity to study a world that could, one day, evolve into a world like Earth, bustling with life. Furthermore, studying Titan will allow scientists to determine whether life forms in the same way everywhere in the universe, or if lifes formation on Earth was an extreme coincidence.

You need to have gone from simple to complex chemistry before jumping to biology, but we dont know all the steps. Titan allows us to uncover some of them, Turtle explained.

NASAs Cassini-Huygens mission unveiled just how rich Titan is in organic molecules, with data highlighting the presence of ethane, propane, acetylene, acetone, vinyl cyanide, benzene, cyanogen, and more on the surface of the moon.

When these organic molecules fall onto Titans surface, they become lodged in ice bedrock, forming thick deposits of organic material. Planetary scientists currently believe that the chemistry needed for the creation of life may reside within these deposits, and that life could start there if given liquid water. Titans surface temperature of 144 degrees Celsius prevents liquid
water from residing on its surface; however, liquid water may have once been delivered by asteroid impacts thousands of years ago. Infrared image of Titan with Selk Crater highlighted. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Nantes/University of Arizona)

Dragonfly will study one such asteroid impact site Selk Crater. Selk is a 90 km wide impact crater that is littered with organic materials and may have once held liquid water for an extended period. Dragonfly will land in an area close to Selk and will explore various locations within the crater, analyzing its surface chemistry for signs of prebiotic chemistry.

Planetary scientists believe the asteroid impact that formed Selk would have melted the organic-rich ice bedrock and created a subsurface pool of liquid water underneath a surface ice layer. This liquid water may have remained liquid for thousands of years, evolving into a prebiotic soup before being frozen.

Its essentially a long-running chemical experiment. Thats why Titan is exciting. Its a natural version of our origin-of-life experiments except its been running much longer and on a planetary scale, said Dragonfly co-investigator Sarah Hrst of JHAPL.

Scientists have been simulating this prebiotic soup, whose chemistry is
likely similar to that of Earths early years, for decades by combining liquid water with organic materials. Such simulations last only a few weeks, months, or years significantly shorter than the Selk Crater-like melt pools on Titan that can exist for tens of thousands of years. However, even this may be too short for chemical reactions necessary for life to occur, with some
scientists believing it may have taken millions of years for life to form on Earth.

Nonetheless, tens of thousands of years may be enough time for a few
important chemical reactions to occur, and Dragonfly will explore this possibility when it investigates Selk. Dragonflys entry, descent, and landing sequence at Titan. (Credit: NASA)

We dont know if Earth life took so long because conditions had to stabilize
or because the chemistry itself needed time. But models show that if you toss Titans organics into water, tens of thousands of years is plenty of time for chemistry to happen, said Hrst.

Dragonfly will carry four instruments to Titans surface: the Dragonfly Mass Spectrometer (DraMS), Dragonfly Gamma-Ray and Neutron Spectrometer (DraGNS), Dragonfly Geophysics and Meteorology Package (DraGMet), and Dragonfly Camera Suite (DragonCam).

The DraMS instrument will be particularly useful for investigating Titans complex chemical makeup for signs of prebiotic chemistry. Specifically, it will search for patterns within Titans surface that suggest the presence of important molecules. For example, on Earth, amino acids are found in specific patterns.

Were not looking for exact molecules, but patterns that suggest complexity, said Dragonfly co-investigator Morgan Cable of NASAs Jet Propulsion
Laboratory (JPL) in California.

While Titan shares many characteristics with Earth, it cannot support life in its current state, as its surface temperatures are too cold and it lacks liquid water on its surface. Yet, scientists still believe that Titan harbors many of the ingredients necessary for life (complex chemistry, thick atmosphere, etc.), and, if given enough time, could one day harbor life.



However, if Titan fails to evolve into a life-sustaining world, it will show scientists that they may have misunderstood the origins of life and what is required for life to be sustained.

We wont know how easy or difficult it is for these chemical steps to occur if we dont go, so we need to go and look. Thats the fun thing about going to a world like Titan. Were like detectives with our magnifying glasses, looking
at everything and wondering what this is, Cable said.

(Lead image: Artists concept of Dragonfly in flight on Titan. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben)



The post How Dragonfly will support the search for life on an uninhabitable world appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com .



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Link to news story: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2025/06/dragonfly-titan-science/


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