A scientist has created the best global color map of Neptune's big moon Triton simply by using images taken from a NASA spacecraft 25 years ago.
The map was created by Paul Schenk, of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, who restored photos taken by the Voyager 2 probe during its flyby of Neptune and Triton back on Aug. 25, 1989.
The map has also been turned into a movie of Voyager 2's Triton encounter. The map and movie, which is just a minute long, shows the first and only time a spacecraft has ever visited the Neptune system.
Schenk's new map has a resolution of 1,970 feet per pixel could bring Triton back into the spotlight, according to SPACE.com.
"In the intervening quarter century and its many discoveries, I think we have tended to forget how strange and exotic Triton really is!" Schenk wrote in a blog post on Aug. 21. "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."
Schenk created the map by using blue, green, and orange filters. The colors have been enhanced to accentuate contract but still reveals Triton as human eyes would see it, NASA officials said last week.
NASA's New Horizon's probe is set to cross the orbit of Neptune today (Aug. 25) some 25 years to the day after Voyager 2'S encounter.
New Horizons is heading toward a flyby of Pluto on July 14, 2015, that should provide the first good look at the distant dwarf planet and its moons, according to SPACE.com.
Triton and Pluto are very similar in a number of ways. Both are smaller than Earth's moons, have a number of ices on their surfaces, and possess thin, nitrogen-dominated atmospheres, Schenk said.
"What will we see at Pluto? Guesses have ranged from active geology to cold and cratered, so we are in for a suspenseful summer next year!" he wrote on his blog.
"Triton is of importance as it offers clues to what geologic features might look like on Pluto, given that the icy crusts of both bodies are probably rather similar and would presumably react in similar ways under internal stress and heat," he added. "So if there were or are volcanoes on Pluto, they could look similar to those we see on Triton."
Voyager 2 launched in August 1977, a few weeks before its twin, Voyager 1. Voyager 1 entered interstellar space in August 2012, and Voyager 2 is set to do the same sometime soon.
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