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

Archived news

Five new moons for Neptune (Aug 19, 2004)

Related category

• PLANETS AND MOONS

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