Elizabeth Turtle, Dragonfly Principal Investigator at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, presents “Aerial Exploration of Titan’s Prebiotic Chemistry” at Breakthrough Discuss 2025. She explains how Dragonfly (a NASA rotorcraft lander mission) will study Titan’s unique chemistry—particularly the interactions between complex carbon molecules and water ice—to better understand the steps that could lead from basic chemistry to life. The mission will map Titan’s surface, analyze its chemical co

The Dragonfly mission teams from @NASA_Langley, @NASAGoddard, and @JHUAPL are making progress through a range of thermal and environmental tests, showing how the rotorcraft will survive and navigate Titan’s atmosphere, which is thicker (and colder) than Earth’s. Each week, with more tests completed, hardware produced, software validated, and analyses proven, the team gets closer to the formal start of its integration and test campaign. These milestones are preparing Dragonfly for its bold journe

Happy #DragonflyWeek! The fascinating life cycle of dragonflies involves three stages: egg, nymph and adult. When a dragonfly nymph is ready to become an adult, it climbs out of the water, sheds its exoskeleton and leaves behind what is known as an exuviae. Have you ever spotted one of these delicate casings? #DragonflySurvey #WWTCaerlaverock | WWT