Umetnikov vtis kačjega pastirja na površini Titana. Z izkoriščanjem prednosti Titanove goste atmosfere in nizke gravitacije bo Dragonfly raziskoval na desetine lokacij po ledenem svetu, vzorčil in meril sestavo Titanovega organskega površinskega materiala, da bi označil bivalno sposobnost Titanove atmosfere in prebiotično kemijo. Napredek je mogoče preveriti. Zasluge: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL

Nova[{” attribute=””>NASA mission to Saturn’s giant moon, Titan, is due to launch in 2027. When it arrives in the mid-2030s, it will begin a journey of discovery that could bring about a new understanding of the development of life in the universe. This mission, called Dragonfly, will carry an instrument called the Dragonfly Mass Spectrometer (DraMS), designed to help scientists hone in on the chemistry at work on Titan. It may also shed light on the kinds of chemical steps that occurred on Earth that ultimately led to the formation of life, called prebiotic chemistry.

Titan’s abundant complex carbon-rich chemistry, interior ocean, and past presence of liquid water on the surface make it an ideal destination to study prebiotic chemical processes and the potential habitability of an extraterrestrial environment.

DraMS will allow scientists back on Earth to remotely study the chemical makeup of the Titanian surface. “We want to know if the type of chemistry that could be important for early pre-biochemical systems on Earth is taking place on Titan,” explains Dr. Melissa Trainer of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.

This illustration shows NASA’s Dragonfly rotorcraft-lander approaching a site on Saturn’s exotic moon, Titan. Credit: Johns Hopkins/APL

Trainer is a planetary scientist and astrobiologist who specializes in Titan and is one of the Dragonfly mission’s deputy principal investigators. She is also lead on the DraMS instrument, which will scan through measurements of samples from Titan’s surface material for evidence of prebiotic chemistry.

To accomplish this, the Dragonfly robotic rotorcraft will capitalize on Titan’s low gravity and dense atmosphere to fly between different points of interest on Titan’s surface, spread as far as several miles apart. This allows Dragonfly to relocate its entire suite of instruments to a new site when the previous one has been fully explored, and provides access to samples in environments with a variety of geologic histories.

At each site, samples less than a gram in size will be drilled out of the surface by the Drill for Acquisition of Complex Organics (DrACO) and brought inside the lander’s main body, to a place called the “attic” that houses the DraMS instrument. There, they will be irradiated by an onboard laser or vaporized in an oven to be measured by DraMS. A mass spectrometer is an instrument that analyzes the various chemical components of a sample by separating these components down into their base molecules and passing them through sensors for identification.

The colorful globe of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, passes in front of the planet and its rings in this true color snapshot from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

“DraMS is designed to look at the organic molecules that may be present on Titan, at their composition and distribution in different surface environments,” says Trainer. Organic molecules contain carbon and are used by all known forms of life. They are of interest in understanding the formation of life because they can be created by living and non-living processes.

Mass spectrometers (see video below) determine what’s in a sample by ionizing the material (that is, bombarding it with energy so that the atoms therein become positively or negatively charged) and examining the chemical composition of the various compounds. This involves determining the relationship between the weight of the molecule and its charge, which serves as a signature for the compound.

Kaj bi storili, če bi imeli vzorec z drugega planeta in bi želeli ugotoviti, ali vsebuje določeno molekulo … morda celo takšno, ki bi razkrila, da planet lahko vzdržuje življenje? Ko znanstveniki naletijo na takšno situacijo, se obrnejo na neverjetno orodje: masni spektrometer. Opravlja težko delo ločevanja materiala, kar znanstvenikom omogoča, da si vzorec zelo natančno ogledajo in vidijo, kaj je notri. Izvedite več o tem orodju v tem videu Nasinega Goddardovega oddelka za raziskovanje sončnega sistema.

DraMS je v Goddardu razvila ista ekipa, ki ga je razvila Analiza vzorcev na Marsu (SAM) nabor instrumentov na krovu roverja Curiosity. DraMS je zasnovan za raziskovanje vzorcev površinskega materiala Titana Poleg tegaz uporabo preverjenih tehnik Planet Mars Sam z obleko.

Trener je poudaril prednosti te zapuščine. Dragonflyjevi znanstveniki niso želeli “ponovno izumljati kolesa”, ko je šlo za iskanje organskih spojin na Titanu, in so namesto tega gradili na uveljavljenih metodah, ki se uporabljajo na Marsu in drugod. “Ta zasnova nam je dala napravo, ki je zelo prilagodljiva in se lahko prilagodi najrazličnejšim površinskim vzorcem,” pravi Trainor.

DraMS in drugi znanstveni instrumenti na Dragonflyju se načrtujejo in izdelujejo pod vodstvom Laboratorija za uporabno fiziko Johns Hopkins v Laurelu v Marylandu, ki upravlja misijo za NASA ter načrtuje in izdeluje rotorcraft-lander. Ekipa vključuje ključne partnerje iz Goddarda, francoske vesoljske agencije (CNES, Pariz, Francija), ki zagotavlja modul plinskega kromatografa za DraMS, ki bo po izstopu iz pečice postal dodaten, Lockheed Martin Space, Littleton, Colorado, NASA Ames bo poskrbel za ločitev. Raziskovalni center na zveznem letališču Moffett v kalifornijski Silicijevi dolini NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginija NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Kalifornija Penn State University, State College, Pennsylvania Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, Kalifornija Honeybee Robotics, Brooklyn, New York , Nemški vesoljski center (DLR), Köln, Nemčija in Japonska agencija za raziskovanje vesolja (jaxa), Tokio, Japonska.

kačji pastir je četrta misija Nasin program New Frontiers, Nove meje za Washington, Direktorat za znanstvene misije agencije, upravlja Nasin Marshall Space Flight Center v Huntsvillu v Alabami.