study<\/a> published in Science Advances, the researchers provide new insight into the chaotic history of the solar system and how it changed over billions of years.<\/p>\n Making an entrance <\/p>\n
Neptune\u2019s moon Triton was discovered just 17 days after the planet itself. It\u2019s nearly the size of Earth\u2019s Moon, far larger than any of Neptune\u2019s other moons. Triton orbits in the opposite direction of its planet\u2019s rotation, the only large moon in the solar system to display such weird behavior.<\/p>\n
Because of its odd qualities, scientists believe that Triton did not form from the remnants of Neptune\u2019s formation. Instead, it may be a Kuiper Belt object that was drawn in and captured by Neptune\u2019s gravity nearly 4 billion years ago. As it entered orbit around Neptune, Triton may have caused quite the chaos, disrupting the planet\u2019s satellite system.<\/p>\n
Another strange moon that orbits Neptune is Nereid. The third largest of Neptune\u2019s moons, it has the most eccentric orbit of any moon in the solar system. As one of the outermost moons around Neptune, it takes 360 Earth days to complete one orbit around its host planet. Its odd orbit suggests that Nereid may have also been captured by Neptune\u2019s gravity.<\/p>\n
The new study, however, suggests that rather than sharing a common origin story, Triton and Nereid may be long-time foes.<\/p>\n
Surviving Triton <\/p>\n
The researchers behind the study, led by first author Matthew Belyakov from the California Institute of Technology, observed Nereid for a total of 10 minutes and 40 seconds using Webb\u2019s infrared capabilities. They found that the moon was water-rich on the surface and brighter than a lot of Kuiper Belt objects. Instead, Nereid\u2019s overall signature was more similar to the moons found around Uranus.<\/p>\n
The researchers then ran computer simulations to test whether Nereid could have been part of Neptune\u2019s original crew of moons. In simulations where Triton crashed through Neptune\u2019s satellite system, one or more moons survived on irregular orbits around 20% of the time.<\/p>\n
The study suggests that within the solar system\u2019s first 200 million years, Triton\u2019s forced entry into Neptune\u2019s orbit would have likely destroyed the planet\u2019s original set of moons. Nereid, on the other hand, may have been spared and kicked outward into an eccentric orbit.<\/p>\n
That leaves Nereid as the sole survivor of an ancient lunar collision that destroyed its satellite companions and left it farther out from its host planet. It\u2019s a hell of a story, with young Neptune thrown into chaos by Triton\u2019s arrival and with Nereid emerging as the lone surviving relic of the planet\u2019s original family of moons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The farthest planet from the Sun has a rather strange collection of moons in its orbit. That may…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[77],"tags":[18,19,17,3154,25574,133,10214],"class_list":["post-498174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-moons","tag-neptune","tag-science","tag-solar-system"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116620768825103151","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}