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From: dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd)
Newsgroups: net.astro
Subject: StarDate: September 19 Neptune's Moon Triton
Message-ID: <738@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 19-Sep-85 02:00:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: utastro.738
Posted: Thu Sep 19 02:00:20 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Sep-85 07:00:14 EDT
Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX
Lines: 36


A remote moon in our solar system may have an ocean on its surface.
More -- after this.

September 19  Neptune's Moon Triton

Far from the sun, in the deep freeze of the outer solar system, there's
a large moon of the planet Neptune that may have its own liquid ocean.

The ocean couldn't be water.  At Neptune's distance from the sun, water
would freeze.  But nitrogen -- a gas in Earth's atmosphere -- may be a
liquid or a solid on Triton, Neptune's large moon.  Triton may have a
liquid ocean of nitrogen -- at least some inches thick -- and probably
much thicker.

This moon with a possible ocean -- Neptune's moon, Triton -- is about
the same size as Earth's moon.  It's a fascinating world that tilts on
its axis with respect to the sun -- so that Triton has seasons.
Neptune's orbit around the sun is very long, and Neptune carries Triton
with it.  Right now Triton's southern hemisphere is having winter --
and 82 Earth-years will pass before Neptune has moved to the other side
of the sun -- to bring summer to Triton's southern hemisphere.

Voyager 2 is scheduled to fly through the neptunian system in 1989 --
if it survives past this winter's encounter with a more inward planet,
Uranus.  The visit to Neptune and its moons will be Voyager's final
mission in the solar system -- which is why flight engineers plan to
send the craft within eight thousand miles of Triton's surface.  It'll
get sharper pictures of Triton than we have of any but a few worlds in
our solar sytem.  Voyager may transmit images of craters eroded by the
weather on Triton -- or sunlight glinting off Triton's nitrogen sea.


Script by Deborah Byrd.

(c) Copyright 1984, 1985 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin


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