Unique Infrared Light Signature On Neptune’s Moon Triton

Eddie Gonzales Jr. – MessageToEagle.com – A very specific type of infrared light signature on Neptune’s moon Triton has been pinpointed by an international team of scientists using the 8-meter Gemini South Telescope in Chile.

The signature is produced  when carbon monoxide and nitrogen molecules join together and vibrate in unison. Individually, carbon monoxide and nitrogen ices each absorb their own distinct wavelengths of infrared light, but the tandem vibration of an ice mixture absorbs at an additional, distinct wavelength identified in this study.

Moon Triton. Image credit:  NASA/JPL/USGS. Voyager 2 images courtesy of NASA

The discovery offers insights into how this volatile mixture can transport material across the moon’s surface via geysers, trigger seasonal atmospheric changes and provide a context for conditions on other distant, icy worlds.

“While the icy spectral fingerprint we uncovered was entirely reasonable, especially as this combination of ices can be created in the lab, pinpointing this specific wavelength of infrared light on another world is unprecedented,” said NAU professor Stephen Tegler, who led the study, said in a press release.

In the Earth’s atmosphere, carbon monoxide and nitrogen molecules exist as gasses, not ices. In fact, molecular nitrogen is the dominant gas in the air we breathe, and carbon monoxide is a rare contaminant that can be lethal. On distant Triton, however, carbon monoxide and nitrogen freeze solid as ices.

They can form their own independent ices, or can condense together in the icy mix detected in the Gemini data. This icy mix could be involved in Triton’s iconic geysers first seen in Voyager 2 spacecraft images as dark, windblown streaks on the surface of the distant, icy moon.

The researchers expect that these findings will shed light on the composition of ices on other distant worlds beyond Neptune, for example, on Pluto, where the New Horizons spacecraft found the two ices coexisting. This Gemini finding is the first direct spectroscopic evidence of these ices mixing and absorbing this type of light on either world.

Paper 

Written by Eddie Gonzales Jr. – MessageToEagle.com Staff