Triton is the largest natural satellite of the planet Neptune and the seventh-largest moon in the entire solar system. This moon is one of the most important bodies for scientific research as it is believed that it could have an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy surface.
However, even though Triton is such an important satellite, only one spacecraft has visited it in history. Then...
Why haven't more efforts been made to visit this natural satellite? Is it tough to get to Triton?
Stay with us to find out!
Jupiter has many natural satellites with retrograde orbits, meaning that many of its moons orbit in the opposite direction of Jupiter's rotation. Jupiter's gravitational pull is so great that when asteroids pass close to it, some can sometimes be trapped by the planet's gravity and remain orbiting it, but in a direction opposite to that of its rotation.
Satellites with retrograde orbits have been known for a long time, but it was believed that retrograde orbits can only occur on small satellites. The strange thing about Triton is that it is a massive satellite with a diameter of 2707 km; it has a size that represents 77.94% of the diameter of Earth's moon and is the second largest planetary moon about its planet, only surpassed by the Earth-Moon ratio.
Being such a massive and large object, it is impossible for it to have formed together with Neptune and acquired a retrograde orbit during its formation. Therefore, the only explanation for Triton's retrograde orbit is that Neptune's gravity captured it at some point in the solar system's history.
00:00 intro
00:45 Triton Facts
3:58 First and last visit
8:40 It is not easy to visit the frontiers of the solar system.
#insanecuriosity #triton #neptunemoon
1 июн 2024
