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Naiad, the closest regular moon, is also the second smallest among the inner moons (following the discovery of Hippocamp), whereas Proteus is the largest regular moon and the second largest moon of Neptune. The first five moons orbit much faster than Neptune's rotation itself ranging from 7 hours for Naiad and Thalassa, to 13 hours for Larissa.
Triton is the largest natural satellite of the planet Neptune. It is the only moon of Neptune massive enough to be rounded under its own gravity and hosts a thin, hazy atmosphere. Triton orbits Neptune in a retrograde orbit—revolving in the opposite direction to the parent planet's rotation—the only large moon in the Solar System to do so.
Proteus is the second-largest moon of Neptune and is the largest of its regular prograde moons. It is about 420 km (260 mi) in diameter, larger than Nereid, Neptune's third-largest moon. It was not discovered by Earth-based telescopes because Proteus orbits so close to Neptune that it is lost in the glare of reflected sunlight. [15]
Triton, the largest moon of the ice giant planet Neptune, is hypothesized to have been captured from heliocentric orbit. Triton is unusual as it is the only known large moon on a retrograde , highly- inclined orbit; that is, Triton orbits in the opposite direction Neptune rotates, and its orbit is not aligned with Neptune's equatorial plane.
The bright blue diffraction star is Triton, Neptune's largest moon. Neptune has 16 known moons. [155] Triton is the largest Neptunian moon, accounting for more than 99.5% of the mass in orbit around Neptune, [i] and is the only one massive enough to be spheroidal.
It is a retrograde irregular moon discovered by Matthew J. Holman, Brett J. Gladman, et al. on 14 August 2002, though it went unnoticed until 2003. [2] [8] Neso is the second-most distant moon of Neptune, with an average orbital distance of nearly 49.6 million km. At its farthest point of its orbit, the satellite is more than 72 million km from ...
Nereid, or Neptune II, is the third-largest moon of Neptune. It has the most eccentric orbit of all known moons in the Solar System . [ 4 ] It was the second moon of Neptune to be discovered, by Gerard Kuiper in 1949.
Galatea is irregularly shaped and shows no sign of any geological modification. It is likely that it is a rubble pile re-accreted from fragments of Neptune's original satellites, which were smashed up by perturbations from Triton soon after that moon's capture into a very eccentric initial orbit. [12]