(PhysOrg.com) -- In addition to its rivers, oceans, mountains, sand dunes and winds, Saturns moon Titan may someday share another similarity with Earth: airplanes.

In the journal Experimental Astronomy, BYU professor Jani Radebaugh and other scientists have put forward a plan that would send a nuclear-powered drone to Titan for a year-long flight to observe the most earth-like object in our solar system.

Titan is a really interesting place as far as understanding the processes on the early Earth, said Radebaugh, a geologist at BYU. It orbits at a good distance, has organic molecules of carbon and hydrogen, theres energy in the atmosphere and perhaps occasionally water on or near the surface  those are the main things considered necessary for life.

Titan is 10 times more distant from the sun than Earth and has a methane atmosphere four times as dense.

Walking on Titan would feel a little like walking through a down pillow to us, Radebaugh said. The atmosphere is pretty stable with some low-velocity winds. Its perfect for an airplane.

So far what we know of Titan has come from the Cassini spacecraft that orbits Saturn. In recent years Radebaugh led the discovery of Titans mountains and sand dunes based on images and data beamed back to Earth by Cassini. Thats why Jason Barnes, a former grad school classmate, invited her to work on the Titan airplane concept alongside researchers from NASA and the Naval Research Laboratory.

To get a closer look, the proposed drone would operate on a nuclear battery barely strong enough to power a couple light bulbs. The battery would power a propeller except when it needed to beam data back to radio telescopes on earth. Prior to these transmissions, the drone would climb high into Titans atmosphere. Then power would shift to the radio cone in the drones nose as the aircraft glided back down to its usual flight altitude.

Nothing is easy in space, Radebaugh said. But as far as space exploration goes, this is pretty easy to design and fly.

While transporting the drone to Titan would take up to 7 years, the communication relay time once its there is a mere 90 minutes.

Explore further AVIATR: An Airplane Mission for Titan