WEBVTT - How Will Exploring Saturn's Moon Titan Be Different?

0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:06.520
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio, Hey

0:00:06.559 --> 0:00:10.320
<v Speaker 1>brain Stuff Lauren Vogel bomb here. NASA has announced that

0:00:10.320 --> 0:00:12.800
<v Speaker 1>it will launch a space probe called Dragonfly on an

0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:16.079
<v Speaker 1>ambitious mission to Saturn's moon Titan, in which a robotic

0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:19.439
<v Speaker 1>rotorcraft lander will fly around, tighten surface and touch down

0:00:19.480 --> 0:00:22.720
<v Speaker 1>in various places. As part of its exploratory mission. The

0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:25.720
<v Speaker 1>Dragonfly space probe will look for traces of chemical processes

0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:27.760
<v Speaker 1>similar to the ones that led to life on Earth,

0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:30.960
<v Speaker 1>in addition to gathering other information about the Moon's surface

0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:36.080
<v Speaker 1>and atmosphere. Dragonfly will launch in six and arrive at Titan,

0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:39.000
<v Speaker 1>which is eight eighty six million miles that's one point

0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:43.520
<v Speaker 1>four billion kilometers from the Sun, in four oh Once

0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:45.680
<v Speaker 1>it's there, the space probe, which is about the size

0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:49.120
<v Speaker 1>of the Space Agency's Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers, will

0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:53.000
<v Speaker 1>turn on eight rotors and fly through titans dense, hazy atmosphere,

0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:55.120
<v Speaker 1>which is about four times the density of Earth's, and

0:00:55.200 --> 0:01:00.360
<v Speaker 1>explore it's still mysterious surface. Titan is the biggest Saturn

0:01:00.480 --> 0:01:03.040
<v Speaker 1>sixty two moons, and a close second in moon size

0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:06.360
<v Speaker 1>in our Solar system after Jupiter's moon Ganymede. Titan has

0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:10.039
<v Speaker 1>a rat is of about sixteen miles or KOs, making

0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:13.120
<v Speaker 1>it about fifty wider than Earth's Moon, but it's not

0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:15.240
<v Speaker 1>just tightened size that has made it a long time

0:01:15.240 --> 0:01:19.200
<v Speaker 1>object of fascination to scientists. Titan is also the only

0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:21.360
<v Speaker 1>moon in the Solar System with much of an atmosphere,

0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:24.040
<v Speaker 1>and it's the only slot in the Solar System besides

0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:26.720
<v Speaker 1>Earth that's known to have liquid rivers, lakes, and seas

0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:29.560
<v Speaker 1>on its surface, though the latter are made up of

0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:33.679
<v Speaker 1>liquid hydrocarbons such as methane and ethane. Titans also believe

0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:36.320
<v Speaker 1>to have an underground ocean of water deep beneath its

0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:38.920
<v Speaker 1>icy surface that could possibly have harbored some form of

0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:42.440
<v Speaker 1>life or may still contain it. The Titan surface is

0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:46.240
<v Speaker 1>brutally cold, like minus two hundred ninety degrees fahrenheit or

0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:49.440
<v Speaker 1>one and seventy degrees celsie is cold, but conditions in

0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:54.640
<v Speaker 1>a potential underground ocean are unknown. Titans thick atmosphere is

0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:59.120
<v Speaker 1>about nitrogen, with the rest mostly composed of methane that

0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:02.000
<v Speaker 1>creates a thick, orange colored haze that hangs over the

0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:05.880
<v Speaker 1>Moon's surface, making it difficult to observe from Earth. Much

0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:07.960
<v Speaker 1>of what we do know comes from the European Space

0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:11.480
<v Speaker 1>Agency's hal Huns spacecraft, which landed on Titan and transmitted

0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:14.320
<v Speaker 1>data for seventy two minutes in two thousand five, and

0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:17.480
<v Speaker 1>from NASA's Cassini probe, which did multiple flybys of Titan

0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:20.919
<v Speaker 1>between two thousand five and twenty seventeen. Hal Hans was

0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:23.280
<v Speaker 1>actually attached to Cassini for the seven year trip to

0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:27.880
<v Speaker 1>Titan's vicinity. Scientists are particularly excited about Dragonfly's ability to

0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:31.600
<v Speaker 1>fly rather than crawl along the ground, unlike Mars, where

0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:34.360
<v Speaker 1>NASA also plans to test a small robotic helicopter with

0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:38.120
<v Speaker 1>large high speed blades in Titan's atmospheres thick enough to

0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:41.800
<v Speaker 1>enable Dragonfly to attain lift with relatively small rotors and

0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:44.480
<v Speaker 1>to carry a bigger payload over longer distances than the

0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:48.079
<v Speaker 1>experimental copter being sent to Mars. It's expected to cover

0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:50.120
<v Speaker 1>more than a hundred miles or a hundred and seventy

0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:52.920
<v Speaker 1>five kilometers during its nearly three year mission on Titan.

0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:55.239
<v Speaker 1>It will fly in short hops of up to five

0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:59.800
<v Speaker 1>minutes at a time. We spoke via email with Jason Soderblom,

0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:02.400
<v Speaker 1>a research scientists in the Department of Earth Atmospheric and

0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:05.960
<v Speaker 1>Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one

0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:10.320
<v Speaker 1>of Dragonfly's co investigators. He explained flight allows us to

0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:12.760
<v Speaker 1>move the lander much greater distances in a short period

0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:15.240
<v Speaker 1>of time than a traditional rover, allowing us to more

0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:20.000
<v Speaker 1>efficiently explore Titan. We also spoke via email with Kurt Niber,

0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:23.799
<v Speaker 1>new Frontiers program scientist for NASA. He said the Dragonfly's

0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:27.480
<v Speaker 1>design is fundamentally different from the Mars helicopter quote not

0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:29.920
<v Speaker 1>just because the atmosphere of Titan and Mars are so different,

0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:33.120
<v Speaker 1>but because they are different vehicles. The Mars Helicopter is

0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:37.160
<v Speaker 1>a short lived technology demonstration with no science payload. Dragonfly

0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:40.040
<v Speaker 1>is a self contained spacecraft designed to pursue a science

0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:42.960
<v Speaker 1>mission with high autonomy. It's like comparing a self driving

0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:46.040
<v Speaker 1>car and an electric scooter. Both have wheels, but they

0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:50.240
<v Speaker 1>have very different purposes and therefore very different designs. The

0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:53.200
<v Speaker 1>researchers working on Dragonfly are excited about the opportunity to

0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:57.119
<v Speaker 1>investigate the giant Moon's many mysteries. Niber said, I'm looking

0:03:57.200 --> 0:03:59.920
<v Speaker 1>forward to Dragonfly finally giving us detailed answers about this

0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:02.560
<v Speaker 1>surface of Titan at the small scale, and not just

0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:05.640
<v Speaker 1>its composition, but also its geology, telling us about the

0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:09.200
<v Speaker 1>complex organic materials present there and how they interact, and

0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:11.280
<v Speaker 1>also giving us a good look at surface features like

0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:14.520
<v Speaker 1>dunes and the Selk crater. Cassini did a good job

0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:16.640
<v Speaker 1>at giving us broad answers to this question at the

0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:20.119
<v Speaker 1>large scale tens of miles, for example, but nothing beats

0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:22.360
<v Speaker 1>getting down to the surface and actually digging your hands

0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:26.440
<v Speaker 1>and feet in so to speak. Sotoblam also spoke to this.

0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:30.560
<v Speaker 1>He said, there's a plethora of unanswered questions about titan surface.

0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:33.680
<v Speaker 1>One fundamental question we have yet to answer is what

0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:36.880
<v Speaker 1>is the composition of Titan's major geologic units, or if

0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:39.440
<v Speaker 1>the water ice bedrock is exposed anywhere on Titan, or

0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:42.520
<v Speaker 1>if it's been buried beneath organic gunk. This is because

0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:45.920
<v Speaker 1>Titan's atmosphere obscures the surface at most wavelengths, limiting our

0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:48.599
<v Speaker 1>ability to use traditional remote sensing techniques to study the

0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:53.280
<v Speaker 1>surface composition. Dragonfly's scrutiny of Titan's surface may also yield

0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:56.360
<v Speaker 1>insights about the Moon's atmosphere and the chemistry going on there,

0:04:56.520 --> 0:04:58.800
<v Speaker 1>which could in turn wind up helping us understand more

0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:02.839
<v Speaker 1>about ourselves. We also spoke with Sarah Horst, an assistant

0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:05.560
<v Speaker 1>professor in the School of earthen Planetary Sciences at Johns

0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:09.479
<v Speaker 1>Hopkins University who's also an investigator on the project. She

0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:12.440
<v Speaker 1>said that chemistry and the atmosphere is interaction with the surface.

0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:15.920
<v Speaker 1>Quote is important for understanding the role that atmospheres may

0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:18.520
<v Speaker 1>play in the origin or evolution of life, and also

0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:21.200
<v Speaker 1>help us figure out what types of molecules may constitute

0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:24.000
<v Speaker 1>evidence for life when we're looking at observations far away

0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:32.599
<v Speaker 1>atmospheres like those of exit planets. Today's episode was written

0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:35.360
<v Speaker 1>by Patrick J. Tiger and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain

0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:37.599
<v Speaker 1>Stuff is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works.

0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:40.080
<v Speaker 1>For moreinness and lots of other far out topics, visit

0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:42.760
<v Speaker 1>our home planet how stuff Works dot com. And for

0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:45.520
<v Speaker 1>more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,

0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:48.360
<v Speaker 1>Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.