Team plans unmanned mission to Neptune

ATLANTA, Dec. 10 (UPI) -- A NASA-funded team hopes to extend human knowledge into the outer reaches of the solar system by designing an unmanned nuclear-powered probe of Neptune.

Because of Neptune's distance from earth, the effort will not produce results for at least 30 years. Experts organized by Boeing Satellite Systems are now engaged in a 12-month planning study.

Neptune and Uranus are the two "ice giants" of the solar system, farther from the sun than the two "gas giants" Jupiter and Saturn.

Paul Steffes of the Georgia Institute of Technology said Neptune's remoteness will give scientists new information about how planets formed.

"Neptune is a rawer planet," Steffes said. "It is less influenced by near-sun materials, and it's had fewer collisions with comets and asteroids. It's more representative of the primordial solar system than Jupiter or Saturn."

The team hopes to launch the probe in about 2018, with data coming back to earth by 2035. In addition to Saturn, the team hopes for information on Triton, a moon that scientists believe was captured by the planet's gravity after forming in deep space.