The spacecraft would include an atmospheric probe. A probe dropped into Neptune’s frigid atmosphere could precisely measure the composition of gases, helping scientists figure out where Neptune formed and how it evolved.Ĭhina is considering a Voyager-like mission to interstellar space that would launch in 2024 and make a Neptune flyby in 2038.
The observations have discovered more moons, monitored seasonal storms, and even detected gases in Triton’s thin atmosphere.Ī Neptune orbiter would help us better understand ice giants by measuring the planet’s magnetic field, mapping gravity variations and atmospheric wobbles to understand the core, and observing how heat is radiated on the planet’s night side. With no new space missions to Neptune since Voyager 2, scientists have relied on the Hubble Space Telescope and large ground-based telescopes to regularly observe the planet.
Further attesting this were fractures, ridges, and lava plains in the north, as well as nitrogen geysers in the south that hinted at a possible subsurface ocean. Voyager 2 also revealed Triton’s relatively young, crater-free surface, indicating geologic processes at work. No other planet in our solar system has such complex magnetic fields as the ice giants. Just like at Uranus, Voyager 2 found that Neptune’s magnetic field doesn’t cleanly intersect the planet’s core and is tilted significantly away from the north and south poles. Voyager 2 also made the definitive observations of the planet’s rings and saw storms raging across the face of the planet, the largest being an Earth-sized anticyclone similar to Jupiter’s famous Great Red Spot.
Its instruments measured an atmospheric temperature of -220 degrees Celsius (-360 degrees Fahrenheit), with wind speeds as high as 2,100 kilometers per hour, possibly driven from heat radiating deep within the planet. NASA launched the nuclear-powered Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1977 to fly past every giant planet in the outer solar system, taking advantage of a rare planetary alignment that only happens every 175 years. It takes a spacecraft a long time to reach Neptune, and we’ve only done it once. Scientists think the planet’s moon Galatea prevents particles in these arcs from spreading out to complete the ring but no one knows for sure. But its outermost ring is not complete, comprising five distinct arcs. Just like Saturn, Neptune has a set of rings shepherded by small moons and made up of cold, icy particles. Future missions would help confirm whether the ocean exists and whether it might be habitable to life as we know it. Geysers of nitrogen erupt from Triton’s surface that may be coming from a subsurface water ocean. It has planet-like characteristics similar to Pluto such as a complex icy surface and thin nitrogen atmosphere and may have started off as a free-roaming dwarf planet. Only one moon, Triton, is big enough to be spherical. Neptune has 14 known moons, half of which were likely captured by the planet’s gravity rather than forming in place.
By figuring out where Neptune was born and how the planet evolved, scientists learn what conditions in the early solar system were like, around the time life arose on Earth. Like the other outer planets, it was probably born closer to the Sun before moving outward, though the Sun would have evaporated its water had Neptune been too close. The disk of dust and gas that formed our solar system probably didn’t contain enough material to form Neptune at its current location, 30 times farther from the Sun than Earth. Where Neptune formed and how it got its water isn’t clear. For this reason, we call Neptune an ice giant, though the ice isn’t anything like what you’d find in your freezer, with temperatures likely reaching thousands of degrees! Electric currents flowing through this icy-hot ocean may be responsible for powering Neptune’s strong and unusually complex magnetic field. Beneath the atmosphere lies an ocean of water, ammonia, and methane, squeezed by intense pressures into a semi-solid state. Like Jupiter and Saturn, Neptune’s atmosphere consists mostly of hydrogen and helium, but it also has methane that absorbs red light, giving it a deep blue hue. In order to understand other solar systems and figure out whether our own is unique, we need to learn more about the windy blue world in our own backyard. Yet we’ve found more Neptune-sized worlds orbiting other stars than any other type of planet. Neptune, along with its cousin Uranus, is the least-explored planet in our solar system, having been visited by a spacecraft only once.
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