• DOI:10.1038/nature02832
• Corpus ID: 4412380

Discovery of five irregular moons of Neptune

@article{Holman2004DiscoveryOF,
  title={Discovery of five irregular moons of Neptune},
  author={Matthew J. Holman and J. J. Kavelaars and T. Grav and Brett J. Gladman and Wesley C. Fraser and Dan Milisavljevic and Philip D. Nicholson and Joseph A. Burns and Valerio Carruba and J. M. Petit and Philippe Rousselot and Oliver Mousis and Brian Geoffrey Marsden and Robert A. Jacobson},
  journal={Nature},
  year={2004},
  volume={430},
  pages={865-867}
}

• M. Holman, J. Kavelaars, +11 authors R. Jacobson
• Published 19 August 2004
• Physics, Medicine
• Nature

Each giant planet of the Solar System has two main types of moons. ‘Regular’ moons are typically larger satellites with prograde, nearly circular orbits in the equatorial plane of their host planets at distances of several to tens of planetary radii. The ‘irregular’ satellites (which are typically smaller) have larger orbits with significant eccentricities and inclinations. Despite these common features, Neptune's irregular satellite system, hitherto thought to consist of Triton and Nereid, has appeared unusual. Triton is as large as Pluto and is postulated to have been captured from heliocentric orbit; it traces a circular but retrograde orbit at 14 planetary radii from Neptune. Nereid, which exhibits one of the largest satellite eccentricities, is believed to have been scattered from a regular satellite orbit to its present orbit during Triton's capture. Here we report the discovery of five irregular moons of Neptune, two with prograde and three with retrograde orbits. These exceedingly faint (apparent red magnitude mR = 24.2–25.4) moons, with diameters of 30 to 50 km, were presumably captured by Neptune.