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Triton's
Retrograde Orbit
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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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Probably
had a wild eccentric orbit for a while
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Source
of tidal heating
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Tidal
forces worked to circularize orbit (see below)
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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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Recall
tides on Earth
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How
many high tides per day?
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TWO!
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Lump
raised by our Moon in oceans not right under moon
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leads
Moon because of rotation of Earth
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pulls
Moon into larger orbit
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Lump
raised on Neptune by Triton falls behind Triton because of retrograde orbit
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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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They
break up
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Why
doesn't this happen to us?
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we
are chemically, not gravitationally bound
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