- Attachment: Neptune picture A1
- There are 166 moons in the Solar System and Neptune has 13 of them. Our Moon is the one closest to the Sun and Neptune’s moons are the ones farthest from the Sun. 5 of its moons are smaller, less than 100 miles diameter. 5 of the moons are irregular, outer moons that are smaller still, less than 34 miles diameter. The 3 larger moons are in the middle:
-------------------- Proteus ------------- 260 miles diameter
-------------------- Triton -------------- 1,680 miles in diameter
------------------- Nereid --------------- 212 miles in diameter.
- Triton is nearly as large as our Moon , about 80%. It has a near circular orbit around Neptune except it is orbiting backwards to Neptune’s rotation. It is obviously a captured moon about the size of the Dwarf Planet Pluto. It is the only large moon in our Solar System the flies around backwards.
- Triton orbits Neptune is just 5.88 Earth days. It is in a synchronous orbit like our Moon always facing the planet.
- Triton has active eruptions and geysers on its surface. The cold venting gas appears to be nitrogen mixed with a little dust that freezes when it falls back to the surface. The source of the heat to produce these gases is unsolved. But, there are volcanoes and vents being created somehow below the surface.
- Triton is the coldest place any spacecraft has visited. Nitrogen geysers and water ammonia volcanoes and the moon’s high density may indicate a large rocky core with enough radioactivity to keep it warm. Neptune has an axis tilt but no seasonal changes because the internal warmth keeps the surface the same temperature, cold.
- Neptune is so cold the same cloud layers we see on Jupiter and Saturn would be buried too deep inside the atmosphere for us to see on Neptune. What we do see is clouds made of flakes of methane snow. Methane can condense in the very cold upper atmosphere. It is what causes the blue colors. Methane gas absorbs the red light allowing only the shorter wavelength, blue light to penetrate to the level where the clouds exist.
- The highest hill on Triton is only 3,000 feet. There is no evidence of any type tectonic activity. The terrain rises from oozing water-ammonia mix. Over large areas the depressions and fissures repeat themselves, each some 20 miles across, making the surface look like the surface of a cantaloupe.
- Triton’s backward orbit is mathematically explained as the Conservation of Angular Momentum. It starts with a binary system, Triton and some companion, orbiting each other, coming close enough to Neptune for Triton to be captured in its backward orbit. The orbiting companion with Triton would get slung out in the equal and opposite direction to preserve the system’s angular momentum.
- Inside the inner moons Neptune has rings but they have dusty regions that make them appear as partial rings when viewed from Earth. The blue color certainly suggests how cold it is. You would turn blue too if you lived there.
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707-536-3272, Saturday, January 7, 2012
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