The planet Neptune has 16 known moons, with its largest Moon, Triton, comprising more than 99.5 percent of the mass of all of them. Triton’s incredible size has led scientists to hypothesize it was a captured object originating from the Kuiper Belt, which wreaked havoc on Neptune’s original moon system upon its capture and subsequential elliptical orbit. Today, some remnants of these original moons are part of the dusty rings that orbit Neptune. But what did that original moon system consist of? Were they the same small worlds observed today or are they pieces of what was once much larger worlds? from Universe Today https://ift.tt/RuEHh28 via IFTTT
Pluto’s moon, Charon, is one of the most unexplored (and arguably underappreciated) planetary objects in the entire solar system. This is primarily because it’s only been visited once by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft during its famous Pluto flyby in July 2015. Despite this quick encounter, New Horizons beamed back troves of data regarding Charon that scientists continue to pour over with the goal of gaining insight into Charon’s formation and evolution. This is because Charon is the largest moon compared to its parent body in the solar system, noted by it being half of Pluto’s diameter and one-eighth of Pluto’s mass. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/QrcRBKV via IFTTT