NASA’s Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s largest moon will touch a terrain of sand dunes and fragmented, icy bedrock, according to a new analysis of radar images from the Cassini spacecraft.
Launched in 2027, Dragonfly is a rotorcraft to come and explore in 2034. Titanium from the air. Its range will be much greater than that of a wheeled rover with the Dragonfly, which can cover approximately 10 miles (16 kilometers) per half-hour flight. according to NASA. During his two-year tenure, he will explore an area hundreds of miles or kilometers in diameter. However, before taking to the skies on its own, Dragonfly must first make a soft landing on Titan under a parachute, densely frozen terrain that cannot be easily seen. hydrocarbon Smoke filling the moon’s atmosphere.
Dragonfly’s landing place, Shangri La The dune field near the 50-mile-wide (80-kilometer) crater, Selk. This region was imaged by NASA. Cassini spacecraft during his mission Saturn Between 2004 and 2017, a team of scientists led by Cornell University planetary scientist Léa Bonnefoy took a fresh look at this data to produce the most accurate assessment of Dragonfly’s proposed landing site ever.
“The Joseph fly . . . goes into scientifically remarkable territory,” Bonnefoy said. Declaration (opens in new tab). “Dragonfly will land in an equatorial, dry region of Titan. Sometimes it rains liquid methane, but it’s more like a desert on Earth with sand dunes, small mountains, and an impact crater.”
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Selk is an interesting place. This impact, estimated to be geologically young, perhaps several hundred million years old, would have melted the local ice and caused interactions between organic molecules and fresh liquid water in the hydrocarbon soup on Titan’s surface. Astrobiologists are particularly interested in prebiotic chemistry—the chemistry that involves carbon-rich molecules but not mediated by living things—that would result.
Still, Cassini’s radar images of the region are limited, with resolution at 1,000 feet (300 meters) per pixel. “There are probably lots of small rivers and landscapes that we just can’t see,” Bonnefoy said. Said.
Scientists know that such rivers exist on Titan, thanks to the work of the European Space Agency. Huygens landing craftHe boarded Cassini before parachuting to the surface of Titan in January 2005. But these rivers aren’t filled with liquid water—the temperature of minus 290 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 179 degrees Celsius) is too cold for that. Instead, a rain of liquid methane and ethane falls from the cold sky and washes the water ice bedrock and carries it into the tributaries that feed the great lakes.
But what Cassini’s images provide are multiple viewing angles. Each time it flew Titan – it enjoyed 127 close proximity to the moon during its mission – it captured key points in Dragonfly’s landing zone from different angles ranging from 5 degrees to 72 degrees.
By analyzing how the terrain produces different forms of shadows depending on the viewing angle, Bonnefoy’s team was able to determine the region’s topography within the limits of image resolution and found no significant obstacles that Dragonfly should avoid.
The scientists also calculated the height of the rim of Selk crater and found that in some parts it ranged from less than 650 feet (200 m) to 2,000 feet (600 m), which is higher than expected, suggesting a less eroded crater. Rome.
The research was published in August. 30 inches Journal of Planetary Science (opens in new tab).
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