12/5/2023 0 Comments Neptune and its moons![]() "We suspect that Naiad was kicked into its tilted orbit by an earlier interaction with one of Neptune's other inner moons," Brozović said. The seven inner moons, including Naiad and Thalassa that are each 60 miles long, are also interspersed with Neptune's ring system. They also thought these inner moons were fragmented due to impacts by comets. Since the discovery of the small inner moons, scientists have believed that they are younger than Neptune and that they formed after Neptune captured its largest moon, Triton. ![]() Some of the moons formed in place along with Neptune while others were captured by the planet's gravity. Neptune is a gas giant distant from the sun in the outer solar system and it has 14 moons. ![]() "There are many different types of 'dances' that planets, moons and asteroids can follow, but this one has never been seen before." "We refer to this repeating pattern as a resonance," said Marina Brozović, study author and expert in solar system dynamics at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The observations of the orbital patterns were made using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Compared to Thalassa's slow, steady loop, Naiad appears to be flying by and gaining four laps with its up, up and down, down pattern.Ī study of these orbits published recently in the journal Icarus. Naiad is in a tilted, varying orbit that resembles an oddly zigzagging pattern, where it appears to pass Thalassa two times above and below.
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