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Nearly 30 years after a NASA spacecraft visited the most distant planets in our solar system, Uranus and Neptune, the space agency, are looking to return.
Using the technological advances of the last 30 years, a NASA scientist and his team at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, are devising new instruments that can explore the atmosphere of the two planets. Uranus and Neptune are relatively unexplored, the space agency said, despite the fact that Voyager 2 took pictures of both planets in 1986 and 1989, respectively.
"Available materials, filters, electronic sensors, flight information, as well as data management and processing have improved," said Shahid Aslam, head of new generation flight hardware development, "In a statement we have better technology all the way in. It is clear that the time has come to develop the next generation of this instrument for future atmospheric input probes."
NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft gave humanity a first glimpse of Neptune and its moon, Triton, in the summer of 1989. This image, taken at a distance of 4.4 million kilometers from the planet, shows the Great Dark Spot and its brilliant blur. These clouds were found to persist as long as Voyager's cameras could solve them. (Credit: NASA)
NASA WANTS TO EXPLORE NEPTUNE MOON: TRITON – THE COLDEST OBJECT OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM 'MIGHT HAVE OCEAN BRINGING EXTRA-ALIEN LIFE & # 39;
Aslam and his team want to create a new device similar to the net flow radiometer aboard the Galileo mission, which allowed to discover the atmosphere of Jupiter and adapt it to the weather conditions of the two ice giants which, according to the researcher, would be important for the mission.
"In fact, you can learn a lot from net flow data, especially from sources and sinks of global radiation," Aslam added.
There are several differences between the gear and the proposed device and the one who visited Jupiter. These include the use of thermopile sensors (capable of converting heat or infrared wavelengths into electrical signals), infrared channels (to measure heat), viewing angles. additional and a narrower field of view.
It is also likely that the device will be smaller and will support faster data sampling, Aslam said.
This is an image of the planet Uranus taken by the Voyager 2 spacecraft, which flew close to the seventh planet from the Sun in January 1986. (NASA)
At present, it is not officially planned to send a spaceship to Neptune or Uranus.
Although the two planets have not been sufficiently studied, like Mars or Saturn, some information is known about them. They contain a "sticky coat of water, ammonia and methane ice, while their atmospheres consist of molecular hydrogen, helium and methane". NASA added in its statement.
The color of the planets may be due to the level of methane in their atmospheres, but something else is causing the distinctive colors of the two planets, Aslam added. Uranus appears as a "blue blur green" and Neptune is a deep blue.
NASA'S MISSION FINDS ITS FIRST FOREIGN EARTH PLANT
In March, scientists from NASA JPL proposed a mission to explore Neptune's largest moon, Triton, which some say could leave an ocean hiding beneath its surface.
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