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 life’s formation on Earth was an extreme coincidence. “You need to have gone from simple to complex chemistry before jumping to biology, but we don’t know all the steps. Titan allows us to uncover some of them,” Turtle explained. NASA’s 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 Titan’s 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. Titan’s surface temperature of -179 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. “It’s essentially a long-running chemical experiment. That’s why Titan is exciting. It’s a natural version of our origin-of-life experiments — except it’s been running much longer and on a planetary scale,” said Dragonfly co-investigator Sarah Hörst of JHAPL. Scientists have been simulating this prebiotic soup, whose chemistry is likely similar to that of Earth’s 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. Dragonfly’s entry, descent, and landing sequence at Titan. (Credit: NASA) “We don’t 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 Titan’s organics into water, tens of thousands of years is plenty of time for chemistry to happen,” said Hörst. Dragonfly will carry four instruments to Titan’s 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 Titan’s complex chemical makeup for signs of prebiotic chemistry. Specifically, it will search for patterns within Titan’s surface that suggest the presence of important molecules. For example, on Earth, amino acids are found in specific patterns. “We’re not looking for exact molecules, but patterns that suggest complexity,” said Dragonfly co-investigator Morgan Cable of NASA’s 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 won’t know how easy or difficult it is for these chemical steps to occur if we don’t go, so we need to go and look. That’s the fun thing about going to a world like Titan. We’re like detectives with our magnifying glasses, looking at everything and wondering what this is,” Cable said. (Lead image: Artist’s concept of Dragonfly in flight on Titan. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben)