Freshman
Courtney Muscarella was a
semi-finalist for a national essay contest hosted by NASA to answer the
question: where should NASA’s next big mission to the outer solar system go:
Saturn’s moon, Titan, or Jupiter’s moon, Europa?
Courtney
and other students in science teacher Erich Landstrom’s Earth-Space Science
classes watched videos about astrobiology and the engineering challenges of
exploring Titan and Europa, then wrote an essay (500 words or fewer) explaining
which moon to send a spacecraft to explore, if you could, and why. Students included
information about the instruments they would put on the orbiter and balloon or
lander. The Titan mission would include a Titan orbiter and a Titan balloon.
The Europa mission would include a Europa orbiter and a Europa lander. Teachers
submitted the contest entries on their students’ behalf. The deadline for
submission was Feb. 28, 2013.
NASA
sent certificates of participation to all students who entered, with winning essays
posted on a NASA website http://icyworlds.jpl.nasa.gov/contest/
Courtney Muscarella’s Essay: ID# 212
Considering our economy at the moment
space exploration is very expensive. Taking this into consideration, how this
money is spent or where we chose to explore, should be selected carefully.
Previous missions like the Cassini investigation that orbited Saturn, delivered
NASA researchers with interesting information and images of the planet’s moons.
Astrobiologists (scientists who study and search for life beyond Earth) are now
pondering if life could be sustainable on the planet’s largest moon: Titan. I
believe NASA should explore Titan with an orbiter and a touch-and- go balloon.
Below I will discuss these two pieces of technology and what they can provide
for astrobiologists.
To begin, we should use a touch-and-go
balloon to explore Titan. Doing so is more beneficial than a lander because a
lander is only able to explore one area and with a vast complex region such as
Titan a lander just won’t cut it. It will leave various areas undiscovered. A
balloon can travel near the moon by flowing in the wind’s direction. It can
touch and go from place to place as it collects data. We can investigate
Titan’s dunes and how they formed, the lakes that do not necessarily contain
water, and the equatorial region. Processes occur in the moon’s atmosphere to
form complicated molecules that create a layer of haze. This haze layer acts
almost like a shield blocking light from reaching the surface. The complicated
molecules combine in several ways that scientists have yet to understand. They
believe these molecules make up the dunes on Titan. Investigating Titan with a
balloon could most likely answer the mystery case of Titan’s dunes. Likewise, I
believe the balloon should collect lots of data such as soil samples,
temperature, and so on. Knowing more about Titan through the touch and go
balloon can help us to learn more about whether life was once present there or
could ever be.
Furthermore, once the balloon has
collected all of this data it needs a way of getting back to us here on Earth.
Traveling there to receive it is out of the question as it would take 9 years
to send a spacecraft to this moon. An alternative option is using an orbiter.
This piece of machinery is able to photograph Titan while orbiting around it.
Also it is receiving the information from the balloon and sending it back here
to Earth. In addition, using a balloon and an orbiter will help astrobiologists
to learn about this moon and they can compare the new information to tell us
more about Earth. We may find answers to questions such as how our solar system
formed and where else in the solar system life could be sustainable.
To conclude, I believe if NASA chooses
to send a mission to Saturn’s moon Titan they are making the best and most
educational choice. I also think astriobiologists may be able to form and
answer several interesting questions about whether Titan can hold life.
