What Saturn's most mysterious moon could teach us about the origins of life
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0:03 - 0:06Picture a world
with a variety of landforms. -
0:06 - 0:07It has a dense atmosphere
-
0:08 - 0:10within which winds
sweep across its surface -
0:10 - 0:11and rain falls.
-
0:11 - 0:13It has mountains and plains,
-
0:13 - 0:15rivers, lakes and seas,
-
0:15 - 0:18sand dunes and some impact craters.
-
0:18 - 0:20Sounds like Earth, right?
-
0:20 - 0:22This is Titan.
-
0:22 - 0:23In August 1981,
-
0:23 - 0:28Voyager 2 captured this image
of Saturn's largest moon. -
0:28 - 0:31The Voyager missions have traveled
farther than ever before, -
0:31 - 0:33making the solar system and beyond
-
0:33 - 0:35part of our geography.
-
0:35 - 0:38But this image, this hazy moon
-
0:38 - 0:41was a stark reminder
of just how much mystery remained. -
0:42 - 0:46We learned an exponential amount
as the Voyagers flew by it, -
0:46 - 0:50and yet we had no idea
what lay beneath this atmospheric blanket. -
0:52 - 0:55Was there an icy surface with landforms
like those of the other moons -
0:55 - 0:58that had been observed
at Saturn and Jupiter? -
0:58 - 1:02Or perhaps simply a vast
global ocean of liquid methane? -
1:03 - 1:05Shrouded by the obscuring haze,
-
1:05 - 1:08Titan's surface was
a huge, outstanding mystery -
1:08 - 1:12that Cassini-Huygens,
an orbiter lander pair launched in 1997, -
1:12 - 1:14was designed to solve.
-
1:14 - 1:17After arrival in 2004,
-
1:17 - 1:20the early images Cassini sent back
of Titan's surface -
1:20 - 1:22only heightened the allure.
-
1:23 - 1:27It took months for us to understand
what we were seeing on the surface, -
1:27 - 1:29to determine, for example,
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1:29 - 1:30that the dark stripes,
-
1:30 - 1:35which were initially so unrecognizable
that we referred to them as cat scratches, -
1:36 - 1:38were actually dunes made of organic sand.
-
1:39 - 1:43Over the course of the 13 years
Cassini spent studying Saturn -
1:43 - 1:45and its rings and moons,
-
1:45 - 1:46we had the privilege
-
1:46 - 1:49of going from knowing almost nothing
about the surface of Titan -
1:49 - 1:51to understanding its geology,
-
1:52 - 1:55the role the atmosphere plays
in shaping its surface, -
1:55 - 1:58and even hints of what lies
deep beneath that surface. -
1:59 - 2:03Indeed, Titan is one
of several ocean worlds, -
2:03 - 2:05moons in the cold outer solar system
-
2:05 - 2:08beyond the orbits of Mars
and the asteroid belt -
2:08 - 2:12with immense liquid water oceans
beneath their surfaces. -
2:12 - 2:16Titan's interior ocean may have
more than 10 times as much liquid water -
2:16 - 2:21as all of the Earth's rivers, lakes,
seas and oceans combined. -
2:21 - 2:24And at Titan, there are also
exotic lakes and seas -
2:24 - 2:28of liquid methane and ethane
on the surface. -
2:28 - 2:31Ocean worlds are some
of the most fascinating places -
2:31 - 2:32in the solar system,
-
2:32 - 2:35and we have only
just begun to explore them. -
2:37 - 2:38This is Dragonfly.
-
2:39 - 2:42At the Johns Hopkins
Applied Physics Laboratory, -
2:42 - 2:45we're building this mission
for NASA's new Frontiers program. -
2:46 - 2:50Scheduled to launch in 2026
and reach Titan in 2034, -
2:50 - 2:53Dragonfly is a rotorcraft lander,
-
2:53 - 2:56similar in size to the Mars rovers
or about the size of a small car. -
2:57 - 3:01Titan's dense atmosphere,
combined with its low gravity, -
3:01 - 3:03make it a great place to fly,
-
3:03 - 3:05and that's exactly
what Dragonfly is designed to do. -
3:06 - 3:08Technically an octocopter,
-
3:08 - 3:13Dragonfly is a mobile laboratory
that can fly from place to place -
3:13 - 3:15taking all of its scientific
instruments with it. -
3:16 - 3:20Dragonfly will investigate Titan
in a truly unique way, -
3:20 - 3:22studying details
of its weather and geology, -
3:22 - 3:24and even picking up
samples from the surface -
3:24 - 3:27to learn what they're made of.
-
3:27 - 3:31All told, Dragonfly will spend
about three years exploring Titan, -
3:31 - 3:33measuring its detailed chemistry,
-
3:33 - 3:36observing the atmosphere
and how it interacts with the surface, -
3:36 - 3:38and even listening for earthquakes,
-
3:38 - 3:41or technically titanquakes,
in Titan's crust. -
3:43 - 3:44The Dragonfly team,
-
3:44 - 3:47hundreds of people across
North America and around the world, -
3:48 - 3:50is hard at work
on the design for this mission, -
3:50 - 3:54developing the rotorcraft,
its autonomous navigation system -
3:54 - 3:55and its instrumentation,
-
3:55 - 3:59all of which will need to work together
to make science measurements -
3:59 - 4:01on the surface of Titan.
-
4:01 - 4:04Dragonfly is the next step
in our exploration -
4:04 - 4:06of this fascinating natural laboratory.
-
4:06 - 4:10In flying by, Voyager hinted
at the possibilities. -
4:10 - 4:12In orbiting Saturn for over a decade
-
4:12 - 4:15and descending through Titan's atmosphere,
-
4:15 - 4:18Cassini and Huygens pulled
Titan's veil back a bit further. -
4:19 - 4:24Dragonfly will live
in the Titan environment, -
4:24 - 4:26where, so far, our only close-up view
-
4:26 - 4:30is this image the Huygens probe
took in January 2005. -
4:31 - 4:36In many ways, Titan is the closest
known analogue we have to the early Earth, -
4:36 - 4:39the Earth before life developed here.
-
4:39 - 4:40From Cassini-Huygens' measurements,
-
4:40 - 4:42we know that the ingredients for life,
-
4:42 - 4:44at least life as we know it,
-
4:44 - 4:46have existed on Titan,
-
4:46 - 4:51and Dragonfly will be fully immersed
within this alien environment, -
4:51 - 4:53looking for compounds similar to those
-
4:53 - 4:57that might have supported
the development of life here on Earth -
4:57 - 5:00and teaching us about
the habitability of other worlds. -
5:02 - 5:04Habitability is a fascinating concept.
-
5:05 - 5:09What's necessary to make
an environment suitable to host life, -
5:09 - 5:11whether life as we know it here on Earth,
-
5:11 - 5:16or perhaps exotic life that has developed
under very different conditions? -
5:17 - 5:19The possibility of life elsewhere
-
5:19 - 5:24has inspired human imagination
and exploration throughout history. -
5:24 - 5:25On a grand scale,
-
5:25 - 5:27it's why the ocean worlds
in the outer solar system -
5:27 - 5:30have become such
important targets for study. -
5:30 - 5:34It's the "what if"
that drives human exploration. -
5:35 - 5:39We don't know how chemistry
took the step to biology here on Earth, -
5:40 - 5:44but similar chemical processes
may have happened on Titan, -
5:44 - 5:47where organic molecules
have had the opportunity -
5:47 - 5:50to mix with liquid water at the surface.
-
5:50 - 5:53Has organic synthesis progressed
under these conditions? -
5:53 - 5:55And if so, how far?
-
5:55 - 5:58We don't know ... yet.
-
5:59 - 6:03What we will learn from Dragonfly,
this fundamentally human endeavor, -
6:03 - 6:05is tantalizing.
-
6:05 - 6:09It's a search for building blocks,
foundations, chemical steps -
6:09 - 6:13like those that ultimately
led to life on Earth. -
6:13 - 6:17We're not sure exactly
what we will find when we get to Titan, -
6:17 - 6:19but that's exactly why we're going.
-
6:20 - 6:22In 1994, Carl Sagan wrote,
-
6:22 - 6:25"On Titan, the molecules
that have been raining down -
6:25 - 6:29like manna from heaven
for the last four billion years -
6:29 - 6:30might still be there,
-
6:30 - 6:34largely unaltered, deep-frozen,
awaiting the chemists from Earth." -
6:36 - 6:38We are those chemists.
-
6:38 - 6:41Dragonfly is a search
for greater understanding, -
6:41 - 6:45not just of Titan and the mysteries
of our solar system, -
6:45 - 6:46but of our own origins.
-
6:47 - 6:48Thank you.
- Title:
- What Saturn's most mysterious moon could teach us about the origins of life
- Speaker:
- Elizabeth "Zibi" Turtle
- Description:
-
NASA's Dragonfly -- a robotic rotorcraft-lander that's designed to hop across the surface of an extraterrestrial body -- is set to voyage deep into the solar system to explore Titan, Saturn's largest moon, in 2026. Planetary scientist Elizabeth "Zibi" Turtle shares how studying this mysterious moon that's thought to resemble the early Earth could bring us closer to understanding the habitability of other planets -- and the origin of life itself.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 07:06
marialadias edited English subtitles for What Saturn's most mysterious moon could teach us about the origins of life | ||
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Joanna Pietrulewicz edited English subtitles for What Saturn's most mysterious moon could teach us about the origins of life | ||
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