Is there life on Triton, the largest moon circling the planet Neptune? An Israeli project aims to find out. One of its key measurement tools will be a super-accurate clock that loses less than one second every 10 million years.
But first, the Israeli project—dubbed “Trident” after the Roman sea god Neptune’s three-pronged spear—must be chosen by NASA to head to space.
Trident, sponsored by the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Israel Space Agency, is one of four projects chosen out of 22 proposals. Each project will now receive $3 million. However, only two will make the final cut for launch in 2026. The craft is expected to reach Neptune in 2038.
Some 4.5 billion kilometers (2.8 billion miles) from Earth, Triton is a promising candidate for finding life in the solar system: Scientists suspect that it has a liquid water ocean under its icy surface.
Triton orbits in the opposite direction to all the other moons of Neptune, leading some researchers to suggest that the moon may have originated outside our solar system and been trapped long ago by Neptune’s gravitational field.
Read More: JNS