Probe expedition on Saturn's Moon soon
Submitted by Akshay Sharma on October 3, 2012 - 3:43pm
Initiative
NASA would be soon launching an expedition program to explore Saturn's moon Titan. NASA, that had recently accomplished a program on Mars earlier this year, has realised that a similar expedition on Titan requires larger spaceship boat.
According to Space.com, a panel of Spanish scientists have proposed a mission to Titan, that aims at exploring its water body surface more adeptly. Titan's largest lake Ligeria Mare is 500 km in diameter and stands the mission central target to shape up the entire expedition.
Vehicle used
TALISE (Titan Lake In-situ Sampling Propelled Explorer) is the floating boat to be used. The lander will drift on the lake's surface and measure the organic constituents. It is first of its kind vehicle that would conduct a nautical exploration of an extraterrestrial sea and produce the analysis of its shoreline.
The Centro de Astrobiologia in Madrid (Spain) and engineering firm SENER have jointly built TALISE. However the details of the project have not been revealed as yet, though the proposal has been cited at the European Planetary Science Congress in Madrid last month.
Interesting facts!
Discovered by Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens on March 25, 1655, Titan orbits Saturn once every 15 days and 22 hours.The atmosphere at the moon is mainly composed of Nitrogen with temporary formations of ethane clouds and organic smog. The climate includes general rain and wind shows some similarities to earth. It is said that Titan's methane cycle is analogue to earth's water cycle.
Temperatures consistently hit 289 degrees Fahrenheit
Space.com has not denied the possibility of life on the moon, considering the presence of water bodies and earth like elements on its surface.
Previous attempts
Earlier attempts to probe Titan didn't meet the desired targets. While NASA has been studying Saturn and its moons since 2004, the European space agency Huygens reached the planet post seven years long hovering. The mission that was supposed to terminate by 2008, got extended to 2010 and again till 2017.
