UNLIMITED

Nautilus

Searching for Life Under a Methane Rain

What future missions to Saturn's moon Titan will reveal about the universe. The post Searching for Life Under a Methane Rain appeared first on Nautilus.

In 2034, a small craft will alight on a distant dune in a place called Shangri-la. This craft, called Dragonfly, will have traveled 746 million miles to eventually land on Saturn’s largest—and most alluring—moon, Titan.

Dragonfly is a radical new approach to studying other worlds. Rather than being bound to slowly creep over the surface, as our Mars rovers have been, it is a rotorcraft, capable of flying several miles at a time. It will hop around from place to place to help us better understand this strange land, where the atmosphere is nitrogen, the dunes are made from ice, the seas are liquid methane, and a potentially globe-wide water ocean may be buried deep below the frozen surface.1

The planned , set to launch in four years, will include an impressive assortment of remote planetary exploration tools: several cameras that operate at different wavelengths to image the intriguing landscape, a small drill and scoop to collect samples, a mass spectrometer to determine

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Nautilus

Nautilus2 min read
Breaking A Cycle Of Apocalypse
Novelist John Larison does not have an incrementalist view of change. His latest novel The Ancients suggests that the very fabric and foundation of a society can become so poisoned that it cannot solve its own problems in any lasting way without tear
Nautilus5 min read
Making Friends with Your Past and Future Selves
This article originally appeared in  Knowable Magazine. When asked why he didn’t begin writing novels until his 30s, the celebrated Czech author Milan Kundera said he didn’t have the requisite experience when he was younger. “This jerk that I was, I
Nautilus4 min read
How To Read A Tsunami
“I work with bait fishing, and I was at the beach on my way to work when the tsunami hit. While preparing for the day’s work, I heard some kind of noise. Everyone turned and looked toward the sea. I saw it too. The water came as high as a cloud.” —Ar

Related Books & Audiobooks

pFad - Phonifier reborn

Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.

Note: This service is not intended for secure transactions such as banking, social media, email, or purchasing. Use at your own risk. We assume no liability whatsoever for broken pages.


Alternative Proxies:

Alternative Proxy

pFad Proxy

pFad v3 Proxy

pFad v4 Proxy