--- title: "NASA Proposes Mission to Neptune’s Largest Moon Triton" description: "NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory proposed to send a spacecraft called \"Trident\" to Neptune's largest moon Triton to scout for potential signs of life." date: "2019-03-22" modified: "2019-03-22" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/nasa-mission-neptune-moon-triton" categories: - "Astronomy" - "Moon" - "NASA" - "Space" tags: - "moon" - "NASA" - "neptune" - "ocean world" --- # NASA Proposes Mission to Neptune’s Largest Moon Triton ![NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory proposed to send a spacecraft called "Trident" to Neptune's largest moon Triton.]() *\Image: NASA\* ## Ocean Worlds We've learned a lot about Neptune's largest moon, Triton, since it was first discovered in 1846. Some scientists [believe]() it could be an "ocean world" with liquid water — and maybe even [harbor life](). And now, pending approval, we might soon get our best glimpse yet. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory proposed on Tuesday at a conference in Texas to send a spacecraft called "Trident" to Triton — with the goal of sussing out whether it's a habitable world. ## Low Cost Mission Rather than spending billions of dollars, the proposed spacecraft called Trident aims to keep costs low — roughly the "price of a small mission to the moon," in the [*New York Times'* reckoning](). "The time is now to do it at a low cost," said Louise Prockter at Tuesday's Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas, director of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston and the principal investigator of the proposed mission. "And we will investigate whether it is a habitable world, which is of huge importance." Along with a Triton flyby, Trident would also visit Jupiter's moon Io and stop by Venus — it's been almost [twenty years]() since NASA's Cassini-Huygens spacecraft visited the second planet from the Sun. ## Video Killed the Radio Star The last good look we got of Neptune was during a [1989 flyby]() of NASA's Voyager 2 — the first time any spacecraft had ever done so. "We are comparing with the Voyager encounter in 1989, which was built on early 1970s technology, essentially a television camera attached to a fax machine," said Karl Mitchell, the proposed mission’s project scientist, as quoted by the *Times*. **READ MORE:** [Neptune’s Moon Triton Is Destination of Proposed NASA Mission]() \[*The New York Times*\] **More on Neptune's moons:** *[Meet Hippocamp, “The Moon That Shouldn't Be There”]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()