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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2018

Up Close and Personal on a Carbon-Rich Ocean World: Dragonfly's In Situ Investigation of Titan's Astrobiological Potential

Résumé

Titan is the carbon world of our solar system, and as a result a prime target for astrobiological investigation. Its abundant complex carbon-rich chemistry, interior ocean, and past presence of liquid water on the surface make it an ideal destination to study prebiotic organic processes and document the habitability of an extraterrestrial environment. Though pathways for the origin of life as we know it are poorly constrained, there is general agreement that liquid water, essential elements (most significantly CHNOPS), some energetic disequilibrium, and a catalytic surface are all required. In addition to the complex organic synthesis that Titan supports today, organic molecules may have interacted with liquid water at the surface (e.g., sites of cryovolcanic activity or impact melt), increasing the potential for oxygenation and chemical processing that has progressed beyond the compositional functionalities observed in the high-altitude organic species. Moreover, during the first 3 Gyr of Titan's history the ice shell may have been relatively thin (<10 km) and exchange between the surface and subsurface could have been considerably more likely. Deposits from that epoch of thinner ice could reveal the extent of aqueous/organic chemistry in the ocean and possibly preserve any potential biosignatures were Titan's environment to have sustained the development of life. Thus, exploration on Titan's surface provides an unparalleled opportunity to search for chemical signatures of potential water-based or even hydrocarbon-based life. The diversity of Titan's surface environments drives the scientific need to be able to sample a variety of locations. Dragonfly is a rotorcraft lander mission currently being studied in Phase A under NASA's New Frontiers Program, that would utilize Titan's dense atmosphere to access diverse geologic settings over 10s - 100s of kilometers apart. It is designed to sample surface materials into a mass spectrometer to detect and identify organic compounds over a wide range of molecular weights and volatilities. Thus, Dragonfly would take the next steps after Cassini-Huygens by measuring in detail the compositions of the variety of materials that result from Titan's complex carbon-rich chemistry experiments and investigating their origins and astrobiological relevance.
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insu-04428873 , version 1 (31-01-2024)

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M. G. Trainer, Caroline Freissinet, K. P. Hand, S. M. Horst, R. D. Lorenz, et al.. Up Close and Personal on a Carbon-Rich Ocean World: Dragonfly's In Situ Investigation of Titan's Astrobiological Potential. American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2018, Dec 2018, Washington DC, United States. pp.abstract #P21D-3378. ⟨insu-04428873⟩
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