Paul Schenk of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston offered a spectacular surprise for astronomy enthusiasts. Voyager 2 is the only probe to have ever flown close to Neptune. The event took place on August 25, 1989. The probe managed back then to capture and send back to Earth images of Neptune’s moon Triton. The scientist restored images of Triton and even assembled a short movie on Triton, based on Voyager’s images.
Voyager 2 was launched in 1977, before Voyager 1, but due to its greater speed, the V1 surpassed it. The probe is still operating, surprisingly, and is close to exiting the solar system and entering interstellar space.
Neptune is the eighth and furthest planet from the Sun, since Pluto has been degraded from its planet status. Neptune has 14 moons and Triton is the largest of them.
The images captured by Voyager 2 have been restored and colored by Schenk. Each pixel of the image presents 600 m (1.970 feet) of Triton’s surface. Colors have been accentuated for contrast, but they are close to how a human eye would perceive them live. Schenk provided a description of Triton’s surface:
“Its effective surface age may be a little as 10 million years [old], clearly implying that active geology is going on today,” he added. “The cantaloupe terrain, which I interpreted back in 1993 as due to crustal overturn (diapirism), hasn’t been seen anywhere else. The volcanic region, with its smooth plains and volcanic pits large and small, is the size of Texas. And the southern terrains still defy interpretation.”
While we feast our eyes with our contemporary solar system neighbors, bear in mind that other scientists recently discovered the traces of an ancient giant star.
Scientist restored images of Triton just before new images are expected from another probe
The image could not have come at a better timing. Another NASA probe named New Horizons will pass close to Triton on August 25, so we will soon have a chance to judge the scientist restored images of Triton by comparing it with increased quality images.
New Horizons was launched on January 19, 2006. The probe’s objectives are to photograph Pluto, relegated to a dwarf planet status, and one or two of Kuiper Belt’s celestial bodies.
Triton and Pluto share similarities in size and atmospheric qualities. They are both just a bit smaller than Earth’s Moon and their atmospheres are mostly made out of nitrogen, Space.com notes.