NASA instrument bound for Titan could reveal chemistry leading to life NASAGoddard
Titan's abundant complex carbon-rich chemistry, interior ocean, and past presence of liquid water on the surface make it an ideal destination to study prebiotic chemical processes and the potential habitability of an extraterrestrial environment.
Trainer is a planetary scientist and astrobiologist who specializes in Titan and is one of the Dragonfly mission's deputy principal investigators. She is also lead on the DraMS instrument, which will scan through measurements of samples from Titan's surface material for evidence of prebiotic chemistry.
At each site, samples less than a gram in size will be drilled out of the surface by the Drill for Acquisition of Complex Organics and brought inside the lander's main body, to a place called the"attic" that houses the DraMS instrument. There, they will be irradiated by an onboard laser or vaporized in an oven to be measured by DraMS.
Mass spectrometers determine what's in a sample by ionizing the material and examining the chemical composition of the various compounds. This involves determining the relationship between the weight of the molecule and its charge, which serves as a signature for the compound. instrument suite aboard the Curiosity rover. DraMS is designed to survey samples of Titanian surface materialTrainer emphasized the benefits of this heritage.
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