![]() The two innermost satellites, Naiad and Thalassa, orbit between the Galle and LeVerrier rings, whereas Despina orbits just inside the LeVerrier ring. The inner moons are closely associated with Neptune’s narrow ring system. All but the outer two are within Neptune-synchronous orbit (meaning that orbit Neptune slower than it’s orbital period (0.6713 days) and thus are being tidally decelerated. Neptune’s Regular Moons are those located closest to the planet and which follow circular prograde orbits that lie in the planet’s equatorial plane. The name Triton, which was originally suggested by Camille Flammarion in his 1880 book Astronomie Populaire, but not into common usage until at least the 1930s. However, many of the moons were not officially named until the 20th century. In this case, all are named for gods of the sea, or for the children of Poseidon (which include Triton, Proteus, Depsina and Thalassa), minor Greek water dieties (Naiad and Nereid) or Nereids, the water nymphs in Greek mythology (Halimede, Galatea, Neso, Sao, Laomedeia and Psamathe). In keeping with astronomical convention, Neptune’s moons are all taken from Greek and Roman mythology. The as yet unnamed fourteenth moon, currently identified as S/2004 N 1, is thought to measure no more than 16–20 km in diameter. Showalter of the SETI Institute revealed that they had discovered a previously unknown fourteenth moon in images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope from 2004–2009. Follow-up surveys by two teams in 20 respectively re-observed all five of these moons – which were Halimede, Sao, Psamathe, Laomedeia, and Neso.Īnd then on July 15th, 2013, a team of astronomers led by Mark R. In 2001, two surveys using large ground-based telescopes – the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory and the Canada-France-Hawaii telescopes – found five additional outer moons bringing the total to thirteen. In the course of passing through the system, the space probe rediscovered Larissa and discovered five additional inner moons: Naiad, Thalassa, Despina, Galatea and Proteus. No further moons were found until Voyager 2 flew by Neptune in 1989. This indicated the presence of a moon rather than a ring. While observing a star’s close approach to Neptune, the star’s luminosity dipped, but only for several seconds. If rings were in fact present, the star’s luminosity would decrease slightly just before the planet’s closest approach. The discovery of this moon was purely fortuitous, and occurred as a result of the ongoing search for rings similar to those discovered around Uranus four years earlier. Hubble Space Telescope composite picture showing the location of a newly discovered moon, designated S/2004 N 1. The third moon, later named Larissa, was first observed by Harold J. Kuiper (for whom the Kuiper Belt is named) using photographic plates from the McDonald Observatory in Fort Davis, Texas. The first was Nereid, Neptune’s second largest and most massive moon, which was discovered on May 1st, 1949, by Gerard P. It would be almost a century before any other moons would be discovered. It was observed by William Lassell on October 10th, 1846, just seventeen days after Neptune was discovered. Triton, being the largest and most massive of Neptune’s moons, was the first to be discovered. Neptune now has 14 recognized satellites, and in honor of of their parent planet, all are named for minor water deities in Greek mythology. But by the mid-20th century and after, thanks to improvements in ground-based telescopes and the development of robotic space probes, many more moons would be discovered. Initially, only Triton – Neptune’s largest moon – could be observed. And just seventeen days after it was discovered, astronomers began to notice that it too had a system of moons. In keeping with the convention of planetary nomenclature, Neptune was named after the Roman god of the sea (the equivalent to the Greek Poseidon). Neptune, that icy gas giant that is the eighth planet from our Sun, was discovered in 1846 by two astronomers – Urbain Le Verrier and Johann Galle.
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