PSW 2397 Dragonfly: Exploring Titan by Rotorcraft | Zibi Turtle

Lecture Starts at 14:00 Dragonfly: Exploring Titan by Rotorcraft October 5, 2018 2,397th Meeting of the Society www.pswscience.org Titan exhibits abundant complex organic compounds on the surface of a water-ice-dominated ocean world with Earth-like geologic and atmospheric exchange processes.  In addition to the level of organic synthesis that Titan supports, there have also been opportunities in Titan&past for organics to have mixed with liquid water on Titan&surface, for example at sites of cryovolcanic activity or impact melting.  Such interactions increase the potential for chemistry to have progressed beyond simple organic reactions, providing an unparalleled opportunity to study prebiotic chemistry, and to search for signatures of potential water-based and hydrocarbon-based life.  Thus, Titan is an ideal destination to seek answers to fundamental questions about the origins of life, such as: What makes a planet or moon habitable?  What chemical processes led to the development of life? While the now completed Cassini mission discovered that the chemical reactions in Titan&upper atmosphere generate much more complex organic molecules than had been expected, the compositions of the solid materials on Titan&surface remain essentially unknown,  and the spacecraft revealed substantial compositional diversity across Titan&surface.  Therefore it will be key for a future mission to be able to measure surface material compositions at a variety of locations:  mobility will be...