Three New Moons Found Around Neptune - Researchers
Mon Jan 13, 5:32 PM ET
WASHINGTON - Astronomers have found three previously
unknown moons around Neptune, bringing the total for
the distant giant planet to 11, the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics reported
on Monday.
These moons are the first to be discovered around
Neptune since the NASA (news - web sites) Voyager II
flyby in 1989, and the first discovered with a
ground-based telescope since 1949, the center said in
a statement.
The three new moons were difficult to detect, since
they are only about 18 to 24 miles in diameter and
their distance from the sun means they are about 100
million times fainter than anything that can be seen
with unaided eyes from Earth.
Using the Blanco telescope at the Cerro Tololo
Inter-American Observatory in Chile and the
Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii, the
international team of astronomers took multiple
exposures of the sky around Neptune. The new moons
showed up as points of light.
Before this, Neptune was known to have eight moons.
The two largest -- Triton, discovered in 1846, and
Nereid, discovered in 1949 -- are also the irregular
ones. Triton orbits in a direction opposite to the
planet's rotation, and Nereid's orbit is highly
elliptical.
The six regular satellites were discovered by the
Voyager probe during its encounter with Neptune. The
three new satellites were missed by Voyager II because
of their faintness and great distance from Neptune,
the statement said.
An image of one of the three new Neptunian moons is
online at
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/press/pr0303_image.html
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