Airplane Developed for Titan's Atmosphere

A group of scientists and engineers recently presented the Aerial Vehicle for In-situ and Airborne Titan Reconnaissance (AVIATR) concept to the world. The aircraft is designed specifically to be able to fly in the dense atmosphere surrounding Titan, the largest moon orbiting Saturn.

Previous proposals saw researchers call for the construction of a balloon to be deployed in Titan's atmosphere, but such a mission would be limited by the fact that the harsh weather at the moon's poles would prevent it from flying over there.

An aircraft such as AVIATR would be capable of both traveling there on its own, and also surviving the harsh winds and freezing temperatures. This image shows an artist's rendition of how the probe would look like soaring over Titan's surface, Universe Today reports.

I find it really interesting that scientists are beginning to propose aircraft for exploring other celestial bodies. A similar concept was also proposed for Mars a while back, and it may even see the light of day, if we're lucky.