Why Is It So Hard To Go To Titan?
0Titan is the largest Moon of Saturn; this natural satellite is of great interest to scientists since it contains chemical compounds that living beings could produce, that is, by extraterrestrials in the form of microbes.
But despite our great scientific interest in this planet, only four space exploration probes have managed to reach this distant world, and only one has managed to land on its surface.
Why haven't we sent more missions to explore Titan? Is it tough to go to Titan?
Titan, the giant of Saturn
The largest satellite of Saturn was discovered on March 25, 1655, by astronomer Christiaan Huygens. At that time, Huygens had no way of determining the size of this natural satellite, but due to its brightness, he estimated that it could be as large as the Moon.
Years later, with more advanced telescopes, the diameter of Titan could be precisely measured, revealing that this satellite was bigger than the Moon and even more bigger than Mercury.
However, until 1979, the only thing that was known about this gigantic satellite was that it was more significant than Mercury and had an intense brightness, but it was not known why.
Pioneer 11 exploration probe flew over Titan and sent the first images of this natural satellite.
Later, the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes would fly by Saturn in 1980 and 1981, respectively. When the Pioner11, Voyager 1, and Voyager 2 spacecraft flew near Titan in the 1980s, they barely captured a few images of this distant world.
The main objective of these exploration probes was to capture data from the gas giant planets. Still, NASA engineers concluded that it would be better to take advantage of the fact that the spacecrafts was already close to those moons to bring them closer and take some images of those distant worlds in more detail.
That act of curiosity to see what was in that distant world would end up being the beginning of something much bigger.
The first spacecraft to fly over Titan was Pioneer 11, taking the first photographs of the satellite, which allowed us to observe a dense, gaseous atmosphere. Thanks to this, the Voyager 1 mission controllers decided that the probe should make a closer approach to this Moon, so it was diverted from its initial trajectory to make a closer flyby of Titan at less than 6,500 km.
Unfortunately, Voyager 1 had no instrument to penetrate Titan's fog, so data could only be obtained from its upper atmosphere.
The mission that revealed the secrets of Titan
The Cassini-Huygens mission was a joint space project of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) that aimed to explore the Saturnian system, particularly the planet Saturn and its fascinating moons. This mission represented a milestone in space exploration, providing invaluable information about the composition, atmosphere, and hidden secrets of this distant corner of the solar system.
Why should we return to Titan?
Titan is a very hostile world for life as we know it, especially for humans. Temperatures on Titan are frigid, having an average temperature of -290 degrees Fahrenheit ( -180 degrees Celsius ).
Dragon Mission fly
Although, at present, there is no proposal for a human-crewed mission whose main objective is to study the Titan satellite, there is an uncrewed mission that has that objective.
This is the Dragon space mission Fly. This proposed NASA mission is designed to explore Saturn's enigmatic moon, Titan, fully.
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Credits: Ron Miller, Mark A. Garlick / MarkGarlick.com ,Elon Musk/SpaceX/ Flickr
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00:00 Intro
00:44 Titan the giant of Saturn
3:40 Xanadu Area of Titan
4:00 TItan Mission
7:20 Why we should return
9:03 dragon mission fly
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