this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2026
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xkcd #3322: Dragonfly

Title text:

I'm excited for Dragonfly, because on the list of places in the solar system that I desperately want more pictures from, 'Titan's surface' is right up there at the top with 'Jupiter's atmosphere.'

Transcript:

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Source: https://xkcd.com/3322/

explainxkcd for #3322

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[–] Ooops@feddit.org 3 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

With a atmosphere that dense most things can work as a blimp.

[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 4 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Depends on how deep you go. I'm surprised none of the proposed missions that I can find are considering staying higher up where it's not hot and crushing and have an extended mission. They're mostly orbiting and then DAVINCI which will fall to the surface transmitting data as long as it can. Why not use the middle area? Eh, they know far more than me.

[–] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I suspect it's a science collection to cost ratio. A multi-year mission in the same high up level of atmosphere of Venus would be cool as hell, but realistically that's a lot of cost for not as much science gain as just collecting a ton of data on a freefalling probe through many more layers of atmosphere and transmitting it back

[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Yes, if they had the funding they'd be sending everything to every body in the system with all types of instruments.

What about an extended blimp that does regular drops of small, hardened probes and radios back the data to an orbiting transmitter?

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 points 32 minutes ago

you had me at blimp