Welcome to the Quanta Audio Edition.

In each of these bi-weekly episodes, we bring you a story direct from the Quanta website

about developments in basic science and mathematics.

I'm Susan Vallett.

Astronomers are ready to search for the fingerprints of life in far-away planetary atmospheres.

But first, they need to know where to look.

And that means figuring out which planets are likely to have atmospheres in the first place.

That's next.

I'm Steve Strogettz. And I'm Jan Strogatz.

And I'm Janelle Levin.

And this season on The Joy of Why from Quantum Magazine, we're sitting down together.

We have our own research areas, but we don't always get the chance to speak deeply about science and math beyond our fields.

We'll ask researchers about moments big and small that inspire them and lead to incredible discoveries.

Lots of science news outlets provide coverage on applied work like health and tech,

but we cover big questions in the study of life, reality, numbers, and information.

We hope these stories spark your curiosity too.

Join us for the joy of why from Quantum Magazine.

Saturn's odd moon Titan is a hazy orange world. In the late 1970s, it was expecting visitors, first NASA's Pioneer

11 probe, and then the twin Voyager spacecraft. Most moons are airless, or boast little more than

gauzy, gaseous veils. But Titan is cloaked in a blanket of nitrogen and methane so thick

that if astronauts were to visit it,

they could take a running start while wearing a pair of wings and fly just by flapping their arms.

...