![]() Naiad and Thalassa are small and shaped like Tic Tacs, spanning only about 60 miles (100 kilometers) in length. Neso, the farthest-flung of them, orbits in a wildly elliptical loop that carries it nearly 46 million miles (74 million kilometers) away from the planet and takes 27 years to complete. Some orbit in the opposite direction their planets rotate othersswap orbits with each otheras if to avoid collision. Some of those moons formed alongside their planets and never went anywhere others were captured later, then locked into orbits dictated by their planets. "There are many different types of 'dances' that planets, moons and asteroids can follow, but this one has never been seen before."įar from the pull of the Sun, the giant planets of the outer solar system are the dominant sources of gravity, and collectively, they boast dozens upon dozens of moons. "We refer to this repeating pattern as a resonance," said Marina Brozović, an expert in solar system dynamics at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and the lead author of the new paper, which was published Nov. This up, up, down, down pattern repeats every time Naiad gains four laps on Thalassa.Īlthough the dance may appear odd, it keeps the orbits stable, researchers said. An observer sitting on Thalassa would see Naiad in an orbit that varies wildly in a zigzag pattern, passing by twice from above and then twice from below. In this perpetual choreography, Naiad swirls around the ice giant every seven hours, while Thalassa, on the outside track, takes seven and a half hours. Every time it passes the slower-moving Thalassa, the two are about 2,200 miles (3,540 kilometers) apart. But they never get that close to each other Naiad's orbit is tilted and perfectly timed. The two are true partners, orbiting only about 1,150 miles (1,850 kilometers) apart. You can stay in the loop by following and on Twitter.Orbital dynamics experts are calling it a "dance of avoidance" performed by the tiny moons Naiad and Thalassa. Neptune’s new moon, along with Pluto’s Kerberos and Styx, was discovered using the Hubble Space Telescope. While they are certainly considering another public naming campaign following up the success of the previous one, it did take a lot of extra work to organize! For P4 and P5, Showalter reported receiving approximately 30,000 name nominations, “many of them backed up by very thoughtful arguments.” They sifted through all the nominations and selected 21 names for the poll, which in turn received about 450,000 votes. He responded that there is no concrete naming plans yet. I had the chance to ask Showalter if he was planning to open another naming campaign for Neptune’s new moon. Orbits of Neptune’s moons, photo credit of NASA, ESA, and A. Although this planet was found not to exist, the term ‘vulcanoid’ remains attached to any asteroid existing inside the orbit of Mercury.” The runner-ups, Kerberos and Styx, were accepted. The IAU explained in the July 2nd press release that “the name Vulcan had already been used for a hypothetical planet between Mercury and the Sun. While “Vulcan,” a name suggestion submitted by William Shatner no less, technically won the biggest number of votes, it was rejected by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). As you may recall, Showalter and SETI recently organized a public naming campaign for P4 and P5, whose results were announced just a couple of weeks ago. Mark Showalter was also the lead researcher for the team who discovered Pluto’s newest moons, P4 (discovered in 2011) and P5 (discovered in 2012). Showalter further explains, “The moons and arcs orbit very quickly, so we had to devise a way to follow their motion in order to bring out the details of the system.” ![]() Our moon, in comparison, travels at approximately 2,288 miles per hour. If my math is correct, 65,400 miles from Neptune implies the new moon has an orbital circumference of approximately 410,712 miles, meaning it travels at nearly 18,000 miles per hour. The new moon may be diminutive but it is not to be scoffed at it orbits Neptune every 23 hours. The press release explains: “On a whim, Showalter looked far beyond the ring segments and noticed the white dot about 65,400 miles from Neptune, located between the orbits of the Neptunian moons Larissa and Proteus.” ![]() The moon was discovered by Mark Showalter of SETI on July 1st. It measures only 12 miles in diameter and is fainter than the faintest star that can be seen with the naked eye by a factor of one hundred million. Making it Neptune’s 14th moon, S/2004 N 1 was missed on the Voyager 2’s flyby in 1989 due to its small and dark nature. On July 15th, NASA announced the discovery of a new moon for Neptune. Neptune’s new moon, photo credit of NASA, ESA, and M.
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