NASA’s quest to examine the Photo voltaic System’s a lot of moons may include a single of the most distant. Researchers have proposed a NASA mission that would examine Neptune’s eccentric moon Triton. Nicknamed Trident for its “three-pronged” objectives, the mission would probe the magnetic area to ascertain the presence of an ocean, map the entirety of the surface area and use a camera to gauge the action of plumes. Up to two strategy reports will be selected by summer time 2021, with a start currently slated for Oct 2025.
Triton could be especially useful because of to pretty strange behavior. It orbits in the opposite of Neptune’s path. Its ionosphere is ten situations more active than any other moon in the system. Its surface area regularly renews, and it’s not particular what drives the plumes. Voyager 2 swung by Triton on its way out of the Photo voltaic Technique, but it only visualized forty p.c of the moon. Trident could fill in a lot of of the gaps.