A key question has been raised in the scientific community as NASA has until 2024 to decide what its next big space mission will be. The scientific communities have already begun to make their proposals. The first choice at the moment is the planet Uranus, the most “unknown” planet in the solar system.

And that’s because scientists know very little about this planet, which is four times the size of Earth. After all, it has been 30 years since the Voyager 2 spacecraft photographed it.

Uranus revolves around the Sun every 84 Earth years. And winter on the planet lasts 21 years, and the temperature reaches -371 degrees Celsius.

In fact, scientists believe that on its surface there may be an ocean under the ice and, therefore, the possibility of the existence of life.

Shipping 2 billion

The panel concluded that this should be the next major mission that NASA would have to approve by 2024.

In particular, he proposes that NASA send a probe to Uranus that will penetrate its unknown atmosphere, and another spacecraft that can be put into orbit around the planet for at least five (Earth) years.

The mission budget will exceed $2 billion.

On Feb. 16, Kathleen Mandt of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory explained in an article in the journal Science that the mission “may lead to conclusions about the origin and evolution of the solar system, as well as many other phenomena around the mysterious planet.” .

With current technology, it would take a spacecraft 12 to 15 years to travel the 1.8 billion miles needed to reach Uranus.

However, these statistics limit launch options and put scientists in time pressure, especially if they want to reach the sky before 2050.

And other suggestions on the table

According to astrophysicist Fabio Favata, NASA still has a lot of options on the table. Final decisions must be made no later than 2024 so that the launch can take place within the next decade.

However, apart from Uranus, perhaps the next big mission (two decades from now) will be Neptune: another frozen “giant” that remains unexplored.

On the other hand, Pluto, which is even further away and no longer considered a planet, has been studied quite a bit by experts thanks to a visit by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft.