NASA wants to return probes to Uranus and Neptune

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, management and data processing have improved," said Shahid Aslam, who heads the team's hardware development team. new generation flight, in a statement. "Frankly, we have better technology all around. It is clear that the time has come to develop the next generation of this instrument for future atmospheric input probes. "

Aslam and his team want to create a new device similar to the net-flow radiometer aboard the Galileo mission, which made it possible to discover Jupiter's atmosphere and adapt it to the atmospheric 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.

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 an "ice-cold coat of water ice, ammonia and methane", while their atmospheres are composed of molecular hydrogen, helium and methane, "NASA added.

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-green cloudy" and Neptune is a deep blue.

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.