What Saturn's most mysterious moon could teach us about the origins of life | Elizabeth Turtle

Reviewer: Nika Kotnik

Predstavljajte si svet raznolikih površinskih oblik.

Ima gosto atmosfero,

znotraj katere se gibljejo vetrovi

ter pada dež.

Ima gore in ravnine,

Picture a world with a variety of landforms.

reke, jezera in morja,

It has a dense atmosphere

peščene sipine in nekaj udarnih kraterjev.

within which winds sweep across its surface

and rain falls.

Zveni kot Zemlja, kajne?

It has mountains and plains,

To je Titan.

rivers, lakes and seas,

Avgusta 1981

sand dunes and some impact craters.

je Voyager 2 ujel ta posnetek Saturnove največje lune.

Sounds like Earth, right?

Voyagerjeve misije so prodrle globje kot kadarkoli prej,

This is Titan.

In August 1981,

raziskovale solarni sistem in še dlje

Voyager 2 captured this image of Saturn's largest moon.

ter ga dodale naši geografiji.

Ta posnetek, ta meglena luna,

The Voyager missions have traveled farther than ever before,

nas opominja na to, koliko nam je še neznanega.

making the solar system and beyond

part of our geography.

Z Voyagerjevim preletom lune smo prejeli ogromno informacij,

But this image, this hazy moon

was a stark reminder of just how much mystery remained.

kljub temu se nam še sanjalo ni, kaj se skriva pod odejo njene atmosfere.

We learned an exponential amount as the Voyagers flew by it,

Se skriva ledena površina s površinskim oblikami

kot smo jih opazili na drugih lunah Saturna in Jupitra?

and yet we had no idea what lay beneath this atmospheric blanket.

Ali samo prostran ocean tekočega metana?

Was there an icy surface with landforms like those of the other moons

Prekrito s temno meglico

that had been observed at Saturn and Jupiter?

je Titanovo površje ostajalo velikanska neznanska,

Or perhaps simply a vast global ocean of liquid methane?

ki si jo je dvojna sonda Cassini-Huygens, ob izstrelitvi 1997,

Shrouded by the obscuring haze,

zadala rešiti.

Titan's surface was a huge, outstanding mystery

Po njenem prihodu leta 2004,

that Cassini-Huygens, an orbiter lander pair launched in 1997,

je sonda Cassini poslala zgodnje slike Titanovega površja,

ki so le še povečale njegov čar.

was designed to solve.

After arrival in 2004,

Več mesecev je trajalo, da smo razumeli, kaj sploh vidimo na površju,

the early images Cassini sent back of Titan's surface

da smo ugotovili, na primer,

only heightened the allure.

da so temne črte,

ki so bile spočetka neprepoznavne in smo jih klicali kar mačje praske,

It took months for us to understand what we were seeing on the surface,

to determine, for example,

dejansko sipine organskega peska.

that the dark stripes,

which were initially so unrecognizable that we referred to them as cat scratches,

V teku 13 let Cassinijevega preučevanja Saturna,

njegovih obročev in lun,

were actually dunes made of organic sand.

smo imeli to čast,

da smo prešli iz skoraj ničnega vedenja o Titanovem površju

Over the course of the 13 years Cassini spent studying Saturn

do razumevanja njegove geologije,

and its rings and moons,

vloge, ki jo ima atmosfera pri oblikovanju njegovega površja,

we had the privilege

of going from knowing almost nothing about the surface of Titan

celo do vpogleda v to, kar leži globoko pod njim.

to understanding its geology,

In res, Titan je eden izmed mnogih oceanskih svetov,

the role the atmosphere plays in shaping its surface,

and even hints of what lies deep beneath that surface.

lun v mrzlem zunanjem osončju,

dlje od Marsovih orbit in asteroidnega pasu,

Indeed, Titan is one of several ocean worlds,

z ogromnimi tekočimi oceani pod svojimi površinami.

moons in the cold outer solar system

Titanov notranji ocean ima morda 10 krat toliko tekoče vode

beyond the orbits of Mars and the asteroid belt

with immense liquid water oceans beneath their surfaces.

kot je skupna površina zemeljskih rek, jezer, morij in oceanov.

Titan's interior ocean may have more than 10 times as much liquid water

Na Titanu so tudi eksotična jezera in morja

tekočega metana in etana na površju.

as all of the Earth's rivers, lakes, seas and oceans combined.

Oceanski svetovi so eni izmed najbolj zanimivih

And at Titan, there are also exotic lakes and seas

kotičkov osončja,

ki smo jih šele pričeli odkrivati.

of liquid methane and ethane on the surface.

Ocean worlds are some of the most fascinating places

To je Dragonfly (=Kačji pastir).

in the solar system,

V Laboratoriju uporabne fizike Univerze John Hopkins

and we have only just begun to explore them.

gradimo to misijo za Nasin program New Frontiers (=Nove meje).

This is Dragonfly.

Z načrtovano izstrelitvijo leta 2026 in pristankom na Titanu v 2034,

At the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory,

we're building this mission for NASA's new Frontiers program.

je Dragonfly pristajalno vozilo z rotorji,

po velikosti podoben roverju na Marsu ali majhnemu avtu.

Scheduled to launch in 2026 and reach Titan in 2034,

Titanova gosta atmosfera, v kombinaciji z nizko težnostjo,

Dragonfly is a rotorcraft lander,

similar in size to the Mars rovers or about the size of a small car.

zagotavlja odlične pogoje za letenje,

kar je naloga Dragonfly.

Titan's dense atmosphere, combined with its low gravity,

Tehnično gledano je oktokopter,

premičen laboratorij, ki lahko leti od enega kraja do drugega,

make it a great place to fly,

and that's exactly what Dragonfly is designed to do.

z vsemi znanstvenimi instrumenti.

Technically an octocopter,

Dragonfly bo edinstveno raziskoval Titan,

Dragonfly is a mobile laboratory that can fly from place to place

preučeval podrobnosti njegovih vremenskih razmer in geologije,

taking all of its scientific instruments with it.

in celo jemal vzorce površja

Dragonfly will investigate Titan in a truly unique way,

za preučevanje njihove sestave.

Dragonfly bo tako raziskoval Titan približno tri leta,

studying details of its weather and geology,

and even picking up samples from the surface

umerjal podrobnosti njegove kemijske sestave,

to learn what they're made of.

opazoval atmosfero in njen vzajemen vpliv na površje,

All told, Dragonfly will spend about three years exploring Titan,

celo iskal znake zemeljskih potresov,

oziroma tehnično, titanskih potresov, v njegovi lupini.

measuring its detailed chemistry,

observing the atmosphere and how it interacts with the surface,

Ekipa Dragonfly,

na stotine ljudi iz Severne Amerike in sveta,

and even listening for earthquakes,

or technically titanquakes, in Titan's crust.

neumorno dela na zasnovi te misije,

sestavlja rotorje, njegov avtonomen sistem navigacije

The Dragonfly team,

hundreds of people across North America and around the world,

in instrumentarij,

ki bodo v tandemu opravljali znanstvene meritve

is hard at work on the design for this mission,

developing the rotorcraft, its autonomous navigation system

na površju Titana.

Dragonfly je naslednji korak v našem preiskovanju

and its instrumentation,

all of which will need to work together to make science measurements

tega fascinantnega naravnega laboratorija.

Voyager je s svojim obletom že nakazal na vse možnosti.

on the surface of Titan.

Dragonfly is the next step in our exploration

Z več kot desetletnim kroženjem okoli Saturna

of this fascinating natural laboratory.

in spustom v Titanovo atmosfero

In flying by, Voyager hinted at the possibilities.

sta Cassini in Huygens še za kanček odkrila Titanovo tančico.

In orbiting Saturn for over a decade

Dragonfly bo živel v Titanovem okolju,

and descending through Titan's atmosphere,

Cassini and Huygens pulled Titan's veil back a bit further.

katerega edini bližnji posnetek

je tale, ki ga je naredila sonda Huygens januarja 2005.

Dragonfly will live in the Titan environment,

V mnogih pogledih je Titan najboljši približek Zemlje

where, so far, our only close-up view

is this image the Huygens probe took in January 2005.

v zgodnjem obdobju, preden se je na njej razvilo življenje.

Iz meritev sonde Cassini-Huygens

In many ways, Titan is the closest known analogue we have to the early Earth,

vemo, da so sestavine za življenje,

takšno kot ga poznamo,

the Earth before life developed here.

na Titanu prisotne

in da bo Dragonfly, popolnoma vpet v to tuje okolje,

From Cassini-Huygens' measurements,

we know that the ingredients for life,

at least life as we know it,

iskal komponente, podobne tistim,

have existed on Titan,

ki so verjetno omogočile življenje tukaj na Zemlji,

and Dragonfly will be fully immersed within this alien environment,

in nas učil o možnostih naseljevanja drugih svetov.

looking for compounds similar to those

that might have supported the development of life here on Earth

Možnost naselitve je zelo zanimiv koncept.

and teaching us about the habitability of other worlds.

Kaj je potrebno za naselitev okolja, primernega za življenje,

ne glede na to ali takšno kot ga poznamo na Zemlji

Habitability is a fascinating concept.

ali eksotično življenje, ki se je razvilo pod drugačnimi pogoji?

What's necessary to make an environment suitable to host life,

Možnost naselitve drugod

whether life as we know it here on Earth,

navdihuje človeško domišljijo in raziskovanje že od nekdaj.

or perhaps exotic life that has developed under very different conditions?

V veliki meri je to razlog,

The possibility of life elsewhere

zakaj so oceanski svetovi zunanjega osončja

has inspired human imagination and exploration throughout history.

postali tako pomembna tema preučevanja.

“Kaj, če” je tisto kar žene človeško odkrivanje.

On a grand scale,

it's why the ocean worlds in the outer solar system

Ne vemo točno, kako je kemija vzpodbudila biologijo tukaj na Zemlji,

have become such important targets for study.

It's the "what if" that drives human exploration.

vendar so se podobni kemični procesi morda izvršili tudi na Titanu,

We don't know how chemistry took the step to biology here on Earth,

kjer so se organske molekule

pomešale s tekočo vodo na površju.

but similar chemical processes may have happened on Titan,

Je organska sinteza pod temi pogoji napredovala?

where organic molecules have had the opportunity

In če je, kako daleč?

to mix with liquid water at the surface.

Ne vemo.... še.

Has organic synthesis progressed under these conditions?

Od Dragonfly, tega bistvenega človeškega podviga, se bomo naučili

And if so, how far?

nečesa izjemno mamljivega.

We don't know ... yet.

To je iskanje gradbenih kock, temeljev, kemičnih stopnic,

What we will learn from Dragonfly, this fundamentally human endeavor,

podobne tistim, ki so nenazadnje vodile v življenje na Zemlji.

is tantalizing.

Ne vemo zagotovo kaj bomo našli, ko pridemo na Titan,

It's a search for building blocks, foundations, chemical steps

vendar ravno zato gremo tja.

like those that ultimately led to life on Earth.

Leta 1994 je Carl Sagan zapisal:

We're not sure exactly what we will find when we get to Titan,

"Na Titanu so molekule,

ki zadnje štiri milijarde let padajo kot mana z neba,

but that's exactly why we're going.

In 1994, Carl Sagan wrote,

morda še vedno tam,

večinoma nedotaknjene, globoko zamrznjene in čakajo na zemeljske kemike.”

"On Titan, the molecules that have been raining down

like manna from heaven for the last four billion years

Mi smo ti kemiki.

might still be there,

Dragonfly predstavlja iskanje širšega razumevanja,

largely unaltered, deep-frozen, awaiting the chemists from Earth."

ne le Titana in skrivnosti našega osončja,

We are those chemists.

temveč našega lastnega izvora.

Dragonfly is a search for greater understanding,

Hvala.

not just of Titan and the mysteries of our solar system,

but of our own origins.

Thank you.