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Neptune's
Main Moon Triton
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7 other
known moons probably like Uranus's smaller satellites
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Triton:
last one of the "major moons"
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Lots
of unusual features
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Not
many craters
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Plumes
observed by Voyager 2
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Either
from warm interior
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heated
tidally by previously eccentric orbit (because of gravitational capture--see
next slide)
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Plumes
form dark smudges on surface
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smudges
appear wind-blown
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Triton
indeed has a thin atmosphere with winds
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mostly
nitrogen
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what
other solar system bodies have mostly Retrograde (backwards) orbit
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clockwise
or counterclockwise?
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Triton
probably formed somewhere else and was captured by Neptune
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4 outer
moons of Jupiter 1 of saturn also retrograde
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Triton
much bigger than these
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Triton's
orbit is decaying
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eventually
Triton will spiral inside the Roche limit
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what
happens to gravitationally bound objects inside the Roche limit?
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atmospheres?
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Some
terrain on Triton resembles Europa and Ganymede's ice cracks
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Unique
"Cantaloupe" terrain
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Surface
temperature 37 K, cold enough for nitrogen ice
Triton
from Voyager 2
Europa's
ice crack surface
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