Science
Related: About this forumA new look at Triton from Voyager 2
On August 25, 1989, Voyager passed within 40,000 kilometers of Neptune's large moon Triton, the last such visit the pioneering Voyager Project would make as it exited the then-known Solar System. In commemoration of the 25th anniversary of this event, a new high-resolution global map in 3-colors has been made of Triton, highlighting the young geologically active surface of the cold icy moon. The map is also in support of the New Horizons Pluto encounter next year in July, 2015.
The map has a nominal resolution of 600 meters and is in orange, green and blue, showing Triton in approximately natural colors. The dark areas to the north were not illuminated during the Voyager encounter. The map is centered on the Equator and extends to 180° W (at left) and 180° E (at right), and from North (top) to South poles (bottom).
Triton Movie
Voyager 2 made a hair-raising pass over Neptunes large moon Triton in August 1989. Approaching from the deep south, Voyager passed over the north pole of cloud-swept Neptune, almost close enough to brush the far-attenuated upper atmosphere.The gravity of Neptune pulled the spacecraft down toward Triton, passing over the unlit north pole of that bitterly cold icy moon.This movie, using the best Voyager map, in color, recreates that encounter with Triton as Voyager 2 ended its tour of the Giant Planets and began its lonely trek into deep space.Triton is 2706 kilometers across.The map has a nominal resolution of 600 meters and is in orange, green and blue, showing Triton in approximately natural colors.The actual encounter as represented here begins about 3 days out from Triton (extending a week on the outbound trajectory) and at a speed of ~25 kilometers per second.
more
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/icy_moons/neptune/triton/
BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)Beautiful pics.. Thanks!
Gore1FL
(21,132 posts)BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)byronius
(7,395 posts)krispos42
(49,445 posts)... Voyager 2 was sending back.
Minus the 4-hour speed-of-light delay.
I think I was up until 6 or 7 am!
Fearless
(18,421 posts)AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)IMHO....of course. But both were still totally unbelievable and breathtaking.
Those were the days!
I always remind people who say about...oh say particle physics... "It's just math"....
We sent 2 spacecraft the size of a VW Beetle into the vastness of space and they both made it to their multiple targets and behaved beautifully ....all with math. MATH IS REAL.