Physics Department Seminar | University of Alaska Fairbanks |
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J O U R N A L C L U B |
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Dragonfly:
NASA's Titan Rotorcraft Lander |
by |
Jason Barnes |
Physics Department, University of Idaho |
ABSTRACT Dragonfly
is NASA's most recently selected New-Frontiers-class
medium-sized planetary mission. Dragonfly will explore
prebiotic chemistry, evaluate habitability, and search for
chemical biosignatures on Saturn's huge moon Titan. Titan's
draw derives from its status as an Ocean World. Like Europa,
Enceladus, and potentially other icy outer solar system objects,
Titan sports a liquid water ocean beneath its icy outer
crust. But unlike those sister Ocean Worlds, Titan's surface
and atmosphere contain a large quantity and complexity of carbon
compounds. When liquid water develops transiently on Titan's
surface -- either from cryovolcanism or impact melt -- water mixes
with that surface organic material. Dragonfly will explore the
chemistry of the resulting mixture at 80-km-diameter Selk Crater
where that water, though now frozen, shows pathways for prebiotic
chemistry that may resemble the process through which life formed
on Earth 4 billion years ago. I will discuss the specific
scientific experiments that the Dragonfly lander will enable, as
well as the instrumentation and exploration strategies that the
science team will use to answer our science questions once we land
by 2034. |
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Friday, 12 August 2022 |
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Globe Room, Elvey Building and on Zoom : https://zoom.us/j/796501820?pwd=R2xEcXNwZGVRbG0va29iN2REU241UT09 | |||
3:45PM |