Why dragonfly what up with the moon

I can remember kicking around this mission idea early on, bouncing along in a Land Cruiser on desert roads in Morocco with my buds. Now it's actually happening!!

Dragonfly Titan. It will finally reach the Selk impact crater, where there is evidence of past liquid water and organics - the complex carbon-based molecules that are vital for life. These may have existed together for tens of thousands of years. We have the complex organic carbon-based molecules.

And we have the energy that we know is required for life. In addition to studying this "pre-biotic chemistry", Dragonfly carries instruments that can investigate the moon's atmosphere and the water-ammonia ocean thought to lie beneath its surface. It will also search for chemical evidence of past or present life. This cutting-edge mission would have been unthinkable even just a few years ago, but we're now ready for Dragonfly's amazing flight.

The lander could eventually fly more than km miles - nearly double the distance travelled to date by all Mars rovers combined. While there is enough sunlight at Titan's surface to see, there is not enough to use solar power efficiently.

Follow Paul on Twitter. Like Earth, Titan has mountains, rocks, dunes, rivers, lakes, and seas, and a plentiful supply of organic chemicals. The spacecraft, about the size of a small car, has four arms that each hold two helicopter rotors stacked atop one another. This will allow it to make short flights around the surface. Each flight will be meticulously planned, but must happen autonomously, since the one-way light-travel time to Titan is more than an hour. To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy.

But we can go to Titan. Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, has a lot in common with Earth. It has a thick, nitrogen-dense atmosphere and features like rivers, lakes, mountains, and, potentially, volcanoes.

It contains many of the organic compounds necessary for life. Studying this world, the second-largest moon in the solar system, may give us a glimpse into how life began on our own. Dragonfly beat out a competing mission plan to return a sample from a comet. Dragonfly is planned to launch in and arrive at Titan in When it lands, it will take off in flight on an alien world. During a two-year mission, Dragonfly will travel hundreds of miles across the surface which is much more than the rovers on Mars, like Curiosity, are capable of , sampling the chemistry of the moon and studying its geology and atmosphere.

It will also look out for signs of life.