Washington:
NASA is planning to send a submarine to Saturn's moon Titan in a bid to explore the depths of its largest ocean and search for signs of life.
Researchers proposed that the submarine would carryinstruments to measure the chemical composition of the ocean the currents and tides and the structure of the ocean floor.
The mast at the top would allow the submarine tocommunicate with Earth when it resurfaces. Since it would not be able to communicate when underwater its search for life is planned to be fully autonomous.
"There are really two big reasons why we want to go toTitan," says Jason Hartwig a NASA cryogenics engineer at the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Symposium in the US.
First is "to determine if hydrocarbon based life ispossible on Titan," Hartwig was quoted as saying by'Inverse.com'. Also as the only moon in our solar system with clouds andan atmosphere Titan is very similar to Earth apart from theextreme cold and oceans of liquid methane.
The hidden in the methane sea may hold clues to how lifeevolved and possibly even extraterrestrial microbes. The mission is still in its conceptual stages.
