Onwards to Uranus and Neptune! |
Onwards to Uranus and Neptune! |
Jan 12 2008, 09:40 PM
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#1
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Member Group: Members Posts: 813 Joined: 8-February 04 From: Arabia Terra Member No.: 12 |
As soon as MESSENGER gets to Mercury, the most poorly explored planets in the solar system will be Uranus and Neptune. Could this lead to a revival of interest in the ice giants and their retinue, in the same way that the existence of New Horizons is perhaps partly due to the Pluto stamp*?
*via Pluto Fast Flyby and later Pluto Kuiper Express |
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Jan 14 2008, 04:35 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 715 Joined: 22-April 05 Member No.: 351 |
Neptune has been ranked as a higher priority as ranked by the scientific community for a follow on mission because of the interest in Triton.
I looked at Titon's orbit relative to Neptune in the mid-2020's on the Solar System Simulator. As viewed from the sun (which I presume is the direction of arrival for a flyby mission), Triton's orbit remains well away from Neptune for this time frame. However, Triton's distance from Neptune is less than the distance of Io from Jupiter. A mission that targets a Triton close encounter still comes reasonably close to Neptune, and probably close enough to act as a relay for a Neptune probe. (However, the ammonia in Neptune's atmosphere will weaken the probe's signal; I don't know how this would effect this scenario.) In fact, a more distant flyby of Neptune than was done by Voyager might be required to give adequate viewing time for the probe relay. -------------------- |
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