Space exploration Neptune shows what the most common exoplanets are – the sonar would refine the image of a blue gas giant

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and … Uranus. Or Neptune?

Here’s a multi-memory throw. Thoughts, of course, are far away, on the outer edge of our solar system. There, these two bluish gas and ice planets orbit the Sun, and are like siblings.

Uranus is closer to the two of us, but still almost 20 times as far from the Sun as Earth is. Therefore, it is next in the list of planets after Saturn.

The outermost planet in our solar system is Neptune, which has now begun to be of particular interest to astronomers.

Neptune perhaps the worst known of the planets. We know even more about the even more distant dwarf planet Pluto. It was photographed by a spacecraft sonar New Horizons in 2016.

Of course, Neptune has also been photographed up close, but only once, in August 1989. That’s when I probed Voyager 2 passed described it as four passes, the closest about 4,400 miles away.

That was the last mission of Voyager-2. It captured all the gas and ice planets and continued its journey into interstellar space.

Planetary scientists say a probe should be sent to Neptune already because it is so long since the last time.

With current technologies, the sonar would get more information about the planet.

Neptune could tell us why ice and gas planets like Neptune are common throughout the universe. Scientists call such exoplanets into mini-neptunes.

They are, as the name implies, smaller than Neptune, but still much larger than our own planet. And there are many in the universe. This was reached in the 2010s.

I need it In 30 years, astronomers have discovered nearly 5,000 exoplanets. It already has a pretty good shot, although millions of exoplanets will probably be found in the end.

Among those found are planets at every departure, from large and fiery to small glaciers.

Initially, most planets were found to be called hot Jupiter. As the methods became more precise, scientists found even smaller, more large, planetary planets than Earth.

Mini-neptunes however, seem to be taking a win. Depending on the definition, a thousand have already been found.

Now we need more detailed information and measurements on them – preferably up close.

Mini-Neptune is a planet much larger than Earth, about four to six times larger. Its large atmosphere consists of hydrogen and helium. Inside there may be water and a rocky core.

Knowledge of Neptune would certainly help to clarify what mini-Neptunes are like.

The easiest the way to determine the origin and composition of the universal planets in the universe would therefore be to send a probe to Neptune.

That’s what a planetary scientist says Leigh Fletcher. He knows what he’s talking about because he’s a professor of planetary research at the University of Leicester in England.

His work is also literally close to Neptune. He was planning on succeeding Cassini-Huygens flight the ring planet for Saturn. It ended in 2017.

The same gentleman was also involved when the probe Juno was taken to Jupiter. It set out to orbit Jupiter in the summer of 2017 and still orbits it.

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“Neptune has been carrying fingerprints since the beginning of time.”

Neptune was one of the four great planets that, at the time of the birth of the solar system, vacuumed the rocks, dust, and gas from the large accumulating disk that orbited the Sun.

The disk provided the ingredients for the planets more than 4.56 billion years ago. The slopes also gave birth to much smaller ones, such as Venus, Earth, and Mars.

“Neptune has been carrying fingerprints since the beginning of time. It provides a window to explore other planets as well, their own mini-Neptunes. They are almost similar, at least externally, ”Fletcher recalls In an interview with New Scientist.

Sure, new and more accurate telescopes, like those just set in space James Webb, also help in the investigation of mini-neptunes. Telescopes may be used to study the composition of the atmosphere.

In the Mini-Neptunes

With Neptune also has a strong magnetic field. Its atmosphere is stormy windy and strange dark clouds move there. So there would be enough to investigate.

Atmospheric storms can develop in hours. The sonar could be tracked in real time.

There would be other oddities as well. Neptune produces more than two and a half times more energy than it receives from the Sun. Energy comes from the depths of the planet.

The sonar would also study the moons of Neptune, where there are enough oddities. For example, Neptune the biggest moon in Triton is weird.

It is the only big moon in our solar system that orbits its parent planet in a different direction than what is the planet’s own rotation about its axis.

The sea is probably below the surface of Triton. At least from the depths of the moon rise showers that can rise up to a height of eight kilometers. In addition, it has been found around Neptune 12 smaller months.

In addition, further research is yet to be done The rings of Neptune, of which there are four. Admittedly, they are much more subtle than the familiar Saturn rings.

Problem is that the design of an important sonar has not begun.

However, the U.S. Space Administration has a project Neptune Odyssey. If that happens, the probe would arrive at Neptune in 2049. The departure would be in 2033.

The journey takes years to the outskirts of the solar system. The distance to Neptune is about 30 au. Au is a unit used in astronomy. One au is the distance between the Earth and the Sun, or about 150 million kilometers.

By comparison, the distance to the Moon is about 380,000 kilometers from Earth.

If the probe and its lander would set out before 2032, the giant planet Jupiter could help.

Big Jupiter could throw the sonar accelerating toward Neptune, and it would have arrived as early as 2044. The next quick turn with Jupiter will not open until the 2040s.

China also has a pending project in which a sonar would bypass Neptune in January 2038. It would fly just a thousand miles above the clouds of Neptune.