{"id":794444,"date":"2025-03-17T09:05:08","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T14:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=794444"},"modified":"2025-03-17T09:05:08","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T14:05:08","slug":"rolling-boulders-on-titan-could-threaten-nasas-dragonfly-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=794444","title":{"rendered":"Rolling boulders on Titan could threaten NASA&#8217;s Dragonfly mission"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<figure class=\"ArticleImage\">\n<div class=\"Image__Wrapper\"><\/div><figcaption class=\"ArticleImageCaption\">\n<div class=\"ArticleImageCaption__CaptionWrapper\">\n<p class=\"ArticleImageCaption__Title\">An artist\u2019s impression of the Dragonfly rotorcraft on the surface of Titan<\/p>\n<p class=\"ArticleImageCaption__Credit\">NASA\/Johns Hopkins APL\/Steve Gribben<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>NASA\u2019s Dragonfly mission is due to land on Titan in 2034, giving us an unprecedented look at Saturn\u2019s largest moon \u2013 but it may also have to dodge wind-driven rolling boulders.<\/p>\n<p>The mission, which will launch in 2028, includes a \u201crotorcraft\u201d that will explore the moon from the skies. We have had only one up-close glimpse at Titan, thanks to the Cassini orbiter and Huygens probe, which reached the surface in 2005. That mission revealed fields of rounded boulders as well as radar-bright\u2026<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/2472319-rolling-boulders-on-titan-could-threaten-nasas-dragonfly-mission\/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&#038;utm_source=NSNS&#038;utm_medium=RSS&#038;utm_content=space&#038;rand=772163\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An artist\u2019s impression of the Dragonfly rotorcraft on the surface of Titan NASA\/Johns Hopkins APL\/Steve Gribben NASA\u2019s Dragonfly mission is due to land on Titan in 2034, giving us an&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":794445,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-794444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-scientist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=794444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/794445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=794444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=794444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=794444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}