A hot air balloon drifts gently in the breeze, gliding over mountain ranges and vast lakes. Thick clouds extend over the entire horizon, threatening rain. The meager light that filters through illuminates one side of the balloon, making it look like a giant question mark in the sky.
This is a vision that floats in the minds of scientists who study Titan, Saturn's largest moon. The Cassini spacecraft currently traveling around the Saturn system has provided us with our best glimpse yet of Titan, but there is still much to be explored.
Athena Coustenis, an astrophysicist and planetologist with the Paris Observatory, is helping draft a plan to send a hot air balloon to Titan, as well as an orbiting spacecraft and a surface probe. Called TSSM – the Titan and Saturn System Mission – this three-tiered approach to exploration could shed more light on the still-mysterious moon.
