Triton has been looking like a strange moon for decades and the worst thing is that it seems to be entirely to blame
Neptune It’s a strange planetboth for himself and for his environment. For starters, it’s tilted in a somewhat strange way. Its axis is 28º. It is not outrageous if we compare it with the 23º of the Earth. However, it is quite puzzling, because according to traditional planetary formation models, it should be much closer to zero. On the other hand, most of Neptune’s moons are very different from those of the rest of the gas giants. He only has one that could fit the predictions. But what about the rest? These questions have long intrigued astronomers. Now, thanks to two recently published studies, there are hypotheses for each of these phenomena. The curious thing is that both point to Triton’s guilt. A violent irruption. According to models recently made for the publication of two studies differentNeptune’s anomalies could have been due to the irruption of Triton into its satellite system. Possibly, during the dawn of Neptune, there would be several Moons rotating around it, all in the same direction. However, a passing Kuiper Belt object came close enough to be gravitationally attracted to Neptune. It was traveling in the opposite direction, so it violently burst into the window system, like a car bursting onto the highway in the wrong direction. Many moons shot out of the Neptune orbit. Others ended up directly destroyed. Only one, Nereid, stayed there, but with a much longer orbit. As for Neptune, its axis suffered that new inclination that does not fit with that of models of a calm planetary youth. Clues that didn’t add up. Neptune has 16 moons around it. The rarest is Tritonbecause it rotates in the opposite direction to that of Neptune and, due to its composition, it looks more like an object in the Kuiper belt than the Moon of a gas giant. Then we have Nereid, which is in an abnormally elliptical orbit, in which it takes 360 days to orbit the planet. The rest are much more homogeneous satellites, but too small and not very massive for what would be expected from the moons of a gas giant. Nereid, having such a rare orbit, has long attracted the attention of astronomers. When it was recently analyzed more closely with the help of the James Webb Space Telescope, it was found to be more similar in composition to the icy moons of other gas giants, such as Saturn or Uranus, than to a Kuiper Belt object. With all this in mind, it was decided to carry out a series of computer simulations, thanks to which we already have an answer. The most likely story. In 20% of the simulations, the result was a case unleashed by Triton. When it was attracted by Neptune, it destroyed the satellite system initial of this planet, as we have seen previously. Nereid held on without destroying itself or flying out of orbit. However, its orbit was deformed, giving rise to the strange orbit it has today. As for the rest of the moons, many of them became debris that regrouped under the effect of gravity, giving rise to the rings of Neptune. Furthermore, some of those fragments became the small moons that orbit the planet today. Triton, the cause of chaos, remained in a fairly stable orbit, becoming just another moon. Of course, a moon that rotates against the current, as a clue to the cosmic chaos that it unleashed at the time. A probe is needed to confirm. All this makes a lot of sense, but it is still a hypothesis with a not too high percentage of success in the simulations. The authors of the study insist that it will be necessary to send a probe to study Neptune closely and clarify the answers. Still, it is possible that Nereid is the only moon capable of truly telling us about Neptune’s past. It is a rare moon, but because it has endured a lot to be able to remain there. Image|NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Naomi Rowe-Gurney (NASA-GSFC) In Xataka | We have been deceived by the distances of the Solar System: the closest neighbor to Neptune is Mercury
