Tag

Dragonfly

All articles tagged with #dragonfly

environment1 month ago•3 min saved

Teen Photographer Snaps Dream Moment as Hobby Falcon Chases Dragonfly to Win UK Nature Photo Contest

A 17-year-old photographer, Maksym Breus, won Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s 2026 Nature Photography Competition with an image of a hobby falcon chasing a dragonfly after about 200 hours of observation and three years of trying. The win includes a ZEISS prize and a feature in the 2027 calendar; a Young Person winner (Tia Pardon) and a Mobile Phone winner (Clifford Wicker) were also announced. An exhibition of the winners will run at Cley Marshes in October, and the calendar goes on sale in late September.

via PetaPixel|

#dragonfly #environment #falcon

space1 month ago•15 min saved

Charged Titan-like Grains Cling to Walls, Sparking Dune Puzzle—but Not Conclusive

Georgia Tech researchers tumbled Titan-like organic grains in dry nitrogen and found 2–5% stuck to the container walls due to static electricity, unlike Earth sand. Follow-up tests with tholin showed weaker charging, suggesting Titan’s real dunes may not be governed by simple electrostatics after all. The results highlight that Titan’s grain composition and environmental conditions remain uncertain, though electrostatic cohesion could help explain wind-driven dune formation; NASA’s Dragonfly mission will help measure Titan’s surface to refine models.

via Space Daily|

#dragonfly #dunes #electrostatics

science1 month ago•10 min saved

Dragonfly to Titan: NASA’s Nuclear Rotorcraft to Probe Methane Chemistry from Above

NASA’s Dragonfly mission will send a nuclear-powered rotorcraft to Titan to autonomously fly across its methane-rich atmosphere, land at multiple sites, and analyze organic chemistry with the DraMS instrument, aiming to shed light on prebiotic chemical pathways and set a new standard for aerial planetary exploration in collaboration with ESA.

via 19FortyFive|

#dragonfly #nasa #note-only-five-tags-requested

science1 month ago•16 min saved

Dragonfly to Titan: NASA's Flying Lab Heads for a Methane-World

NASA’s Dragonfly, a nuclear-powered rotorcraft designed to fly Titan’s dense, methane-rich atmosphere, is set for a July 2028 Falcon Heavy launch from Kennedy Space Center. After a six-and-a-half-year cruise, it will descend to Titan in late 2034 to explore dunes, craters and the moon’s lakes and seas, using a suite of instruments to study complex organics and Titan’s habitability rather than searching for life. The mission will fly between 20–30 sites across about 115 kilometers, autonomously handling entry, descent and multiple sorties on a world with methane rain and rivers. The schedule has evolved due to funding, pandemics, and supply-chain factors, with the date described as “no earlier than July 2028.”

via Space Daily|

#dragonfly #nasa #rotorcraft

space2 months ago•11 min saved

Titan: Humans Will Need a Multi-Decade Commitment, Not a Quick Physics Fix

A two-day Boulder summit concluded that sending humans to Saturn’s moon Titan isn’t blocked by physics but by the need for decades of sustained investment, technology development, and collective will. Robotic precursor missions like Dragonfly (launch no earlier than 2028) will map remaining gaps and inform habitat, power, and safety designs, feeding any eventual crewed plans. Titan’s dense atmosphere reduces radiation exposure, but its extreme cold, hydrocarbon weather, and vast distance require a patient, multi-generational effort rather than an imminent flight.

via Space Daily|

#dragonfly #human-spaceflight #long-term-planning

environment2 months ago•2 min saved

The wandering glider: the globe-trotting dragonfly that sails the oceans

Known as the wandering glider (Pantala flavescens), this 4.5 cm dragonfly is the planet’s farthest-migrating insect, traveling up to 18,000 km between India and East Africa and even crossing 3,500 km of open ocean on monsoon winds. It breeds rapidly—in 38 days larvae develop—allowing females to lay up to 2,000 eggs and exploit ephemeral waters, and recent isotope and genetic studies show it represents a single global population. Found on every continent except Antarctica, its extraordinary migration highlights how even common insects can host astonishing journeys.

via The Guardian|

#dragonfly #environment #insect-migration

space2 months ago•11 min saved

Dragonfly Eyes Titan: NASA’s nuclear-powered drone to hop across methane seas in search of life’s chemical clues

NASA has greenlit Dragonfly, a car-sized, eight-rotor, nuclear-powered rotorcraft that will hop across Titan’s surface to sample its methane/ethane environment and investigate the chemistry that could precede life. Slated to launch in 2028 and arrive around 2034, the mission will study the ground between hops for complex organic molecules over roughly three Titan days, offering the first powered flight on another world and exploring whether Titan’s alien chemistry could host the steps toward biology, with ocean questions beneath its icy crust still under discussion.

via Space Daily|

#dragonfly #nasa #prebiotic-chemistry

science2 months ago•14 min saved

Earth Dunes Help Shape NASA's Dragonfly Quest to Titan

BYU researchers are aiding NASA's Dragonfly mission to Titan by studying Earth's dune landscapes—Namibia and Alaska—as analogs to Titan's terrain, helping NASA interpret landing areas and surface data while giving BYU students hands-on experience on a 2028-launched mission.

via KSL News|

#byu #dragonfly #dunes

space2 months ago•10 min saved

Titan’s Thick Air Could Let Humans Fly with Winged Gear

On Titan, the combination of a dense atmosphere (about 4.3x Earth’s) and gravity (~1/7 of Earth’s) could theoretically enable a human to take off with winged propulsion. But surviving Titan requires a heated, oxygen‑fed suit in the moon’s frigid -179 C environment with no breathable air, so the flight concept is a physics possibility, not a practical plan today. NASA’s Dragonfly drone aims to exploit these conditions for long aloft flight, arriving around 2034, while a human-powered version remains speculative.

via Space Daily|

#dragonfly #flight #nasa

space2 months ago•10 min saved

Titan’s paradox: a dense air you could walk through, but no breathable oxygen

Titan is the only moon with a thick atmosphere (surface pressure about 1.6 times Earth’s), so you wouldn’t need a pressure suit, but its -179°C surface and nitrogen/methane air mean there is essentially no breathable oxygen, requiring your own supply and heavy cold protection. The moon hosts an Earth-like weather cycle fueled by methane/ethane, and NASA’s Dragonfly mission aims to study Titan’s prebiotic chemistry, not life detection.

via Space Daily|

#atmosphere #dragonfly #methane

technology2 months ago•9 min saved

Dragonfly: NASA’s Car-Sized Nuclear Drone Sets Course for Titan in 2028

NASA plans to launch Dragonfly in July 2028—a car-sized, 1,000-pound plutonium-powered drone that will autonomously hop across Titan’s surface for about six years on a roughly $3.35 billion mission. With eight rotors and autonomous navigation, it will fly roughly 30-minute legs at about 22 mph, using a plutonium MMRTG to power the lab-sized payload of DraMS, DraGNS, DragonCam, and DraGMet. Titan’s dense atmosphere and low gravity make flying easier than on Earth, and the mission will operate largely without real-time Earth control due to long signal delays, aiming to study prebiotic chemistry and the potential subsurface ocean beneath Titan’s icy crust.

via 19FortyFive|

#dragonfly #nasa #nuclear-power

space2 months ago•11 min saved

Titan’s potential cryovolcanoes could spew icy slush of water and ammonia

Titan may host cryovolcanoes that eject a cold ammonia–water slush instead of lava; Cassini-era data identified candidate features (like Sotra Patera) but no definitive smoking gun, leaving the cryovolcanism question unsettled. The interior could consist of high‑pressure ice pockets or a subsurface ocean that could supply melt, with ammonia helping lower the freezing point and reduce liquid density. The upcoming Dragonfly mission (launch 2028, arrival 2034) could measure surface chemistry, subsurface structure and seismic activity to help settle the debate; for now cryovolcanism on Titan remains physically plausible but unconfirmed.

via Space Daily|

#cassini #cryovolcanism #dragonfly

space2 months ago•10 min saved

NASA’s Dragonfly to scout Titan with a car-sized, nuclear-powered rotorcraft

NASA plans to launch Dragonfly, a car-sized eight-rotor rotorcraft powered by a plutonium-238 RTG, to hop between sites on Saturn’s moon Titan. The drone will study Titan’s methane seas, organic-rich dunes, and prebiotic chemistry, exploring how carbon chemistry progresses in environments unlike Earth. Dragonfly could travel up to ~175 km during its nominal mission, arriving at Titan no earlier than 2028 and reaching the world by 2034, using heat from its power source to keep instruments warm in Titan’s frigid environment.

via Space Daily|

#dragonfly #methane #nasa

space2 months ago•15 min saved

Titan's Vast, Fireproof Hydrocarbon Seas

New analysis of Cassini-Huygens data shows Titan's northern seas Kraken Mare, Ligeia Mare, and Punga Mare hold tens of thousands of cubic kilometers of liquid methane and ethane—far more hydrocarbon fuel than Earth's proven reserves—yet the atmosphere is almost completely devoid of oxygen, so nothing on Titan can burn; even lightning would not ignite the fuel, though Titan maintains a methane-based weather cycle, complete with rainfall and rivers; the Huygens probe landed in 2005 and future Dragonfly missions will explore Titan further.

via Space Daily|

#cassini-huygens #dragonfly #ethane

space2 months ago•12 min saved

Titan: Saturn’s Resource-Rich Moon as a Blueprint for a Space Colony

NASA-backed research argues Titan’s abundance of hydrocarbons, surface and subsurface water, and a dense atmosphere could enable in-situ resource utilization to fuel, feed, and manufacture for long-range missions and potential settlements, including refueling depots and bases that could support exploration of Saturn’s moons; Titan’s unique mix makes it a leading contender despite the significant distance and challenge, with NASA’s Dragonfly mission on the horizon and helium-3 in Saturn’s atmosphere adding fusion-fuel interest.

via SciTechDaily|

#dragonfly #isru #nasa