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Neptune, moons
Neptune has 13 known moons. All of the small, irregular moons that lie beyond Nereid have been discovered since 2002. In addition a candidate moon has been identified and named c02N4. This was discovered on Aug. 14, 2002, and seen again using the Very Large Telescope (VLT) on Sep. 3, 2002. However, further attempts to spot this object failed. c02N4 could be a Centaur – an object that has migrated from the Kuiper Belt – but its lack of movement relative to Neptune is more consistent with it being a satellite. See also Neptune Trojan.
| moon | orbit semi-major axis (km) |
orbital period (d) |
eccentricity | orb. incl. (º) |
diameter (km) |
| Naiad | 48,227 | 0.294 | 0.0003 | 4.75 | 96 × 60 × 52 |
| Thalassa | 50,075 | 0.311 | 0.0002 | 0.21 | 108 × 100 × 52 |
| Despina | 52,526 | 0.335 | 0.0002 | 0.22 | 180 × 150 × 130 |
| Galatea | 61,953 | 0.429 | 0.0001 | 0.05 | 204 × 184 × 144 |
| Larissa | 73,548 | 0.555 | 0.0014 | 0.25 | 216 × 204 × 164 |
| Proteus | 117,647 | 1.122 | 0.0005 | 0.52 | 436 × 416 × 402 |
| Triton | 354,800 | 5.877R | 0.0000 | 157.3 | 2,707 |
| Nereid | 5,513,000 | 360.14 | 0.7512 | 32.55 | 340 |
| S/2002 N1 | 15,728,000 | 1879.7 | 0.571 | 134.1 | 62 |
| S/2002 N2 | 22,422,000 | 2914.1 | 0.293 | 48.51 | 44 |
| S/2002 N3 | 23,571,000 | 3167.9 | 0.424 | 35 | 42 |
| Psamathe | 46,695,000 | 9115.9 | 0.450 | 146.6 | 24 |
| S/2002 N4 | 48,387,000 | 9374.0 | 0.495 | 132 | 60 |
Related category
• PLANETS AND MOONS
Archived news
Five new moons for Neptune (Aug 19, 2004)
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