NASA sees Titan's potential for studying prebiotic chemistry
(Phys.org) —NASA is proposing a mission study to open up the mysteries of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. The reason is compelling enough. Titan would serve as a vast reservoir of information about one of the most earth-like worlds ever discovered. With its thick atmosphere and organic-rich chemistry, said NASA, Titan resembles a frozen version of Earth, several billion years ago, before life began pumping oxygen into our atmosphere. NASA's Larry Matthies, senior research scientist at the Pasadena, California, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, authored Titan Aerial Daughtercraft on the NASA website earlier this month. The proposed mission study involves a vehicle for Titan exploration, a rotorcraft, which would weigh less than 22 pounds. "We propose a mission study of a small (< 10 kg) (