NASA unveils best map ever of Neptune's moon Triton (images, video).Amazing photos: Jupiter's volcanic moon Io.Venus' atmosphere: Composition, climate and weather.More than a dozen were made public, including two concept missions that would have studied the strange emissaries from the Kuiper Belt known as Centaurs. Proposals for this Discovery round were submitted last year. You can learn more about all four finalists here. Trident would map Triton's surface and attempt to determine if the moon does indeed host a subsurface ocean, as many scientists believe. Then, there's the Trident mission, which would study the Neptune moon Triton in detail during a single flyby. ( Io's extreme volcanism is driven by tidal forces Jupiter and Io's fellow Galilean moons tug hard on the rocky moon, churning its insides.) Neptune's Trident IVO could help researchers better understand the ways that powerful tidal forces shape the evolution of rocky bodies in our solar system and beyond, NASA officials said. The Io Volcano Observer (IVO) mission, meanwhile, would study the incredibly active Jupiter moon up close during a series of flybys. This probe's observations would shed considerable light on the planet's geologic history and help confirm if volcanism and plate tectonics are active on the planet today, NASA officials said. The VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography and Spectroscopy) mission would map Venus' surface in detail from orbit. DAVINCI Plus (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry and Imaging Plus) would send a probe down through the thick Venusian air, gathering data that would help scientists better understand how the hellishly hot planet's atmosphere has changed over time. Two of the four newly announced finalists target Venus. Indeed, that happened during the previous Discovery round in January 2017, NASA announced that both the Lucy and Psyche missions would proceed to launch (in 20, respectively). Two of the missions could end up getting off the ground. Agency officials will then evaluate these reports, eventually choosing up to two missions for continued development toward flight. This article is part of a series on the moons of Jupiter.The teams behind the four mission concepts will each receive $3 million to continue maturing their ideas over the next nine months, culminating in the submission of study reports to NASA. Io is one of the most interesting moons in the solar system, from both a professional and amateur perspective. Even though it's so thin, the atmosphere is substantial enough for Io to experience weather and seasons, and it even has clouds. Io’s atmosphere is primarily composed of sulfur dioxide and is about 100,000 times thinner than Earth's (so I wouldn’t suggest breathing it for several reasons). Io is one of only three moons in our solar system with a substantial atmosphere (other moons, such as Rhea, Titania, and even our own moon have extremely thin, hardly noticeable atmospheres). Tidal Heating “occurs through the tidal friction processes: orbital and rotational energy are dissipated as heat in the crust of the moons and planets involved.” All of this geological activity leads to another interesting feature for Io… an atmosphere. On Earth, geological activity is primarily the result of plate tectonics – in contrast, Io’s geological activity is a result of tidal heating caused by the gravitational pull of Jupiter and the other three Galilean moons. Io (the moon, not the priestess) is home to over 400 active volcanoes, making it the most geologically active body in the solar system.
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