Three New Moons Found Around Neptune - Researchers

Yahoo! News (Reuters) ^ | 1/13/2003 | n/a

[Pyro7480]

Three New Moons Found Around Neptune - Researchers

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Astronomers have found three previously unknown moons around Neptune, bringing the total for the distant giant planet to 11, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics reported on Monday.

hese moons are the first to be discovered around Neptune since the NASA (news - web sites) Voyager II flyby in 1989, and the first discovered with a ground-based telescope since 1949, the center said in a statement.

The three new moons were difficult to detect, since they are only about 18 to 24 miles in diameter and their distance from the sun means they are about 100 million times fainter than anything that can be seen with unaided eyes from Earth.

Using the Blanco telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii, the international team of astronomers took multiple exposures of the sky around Neptune. The new moons showed up as points of light.

Before this, Neptune was known to have eight moons. The two largest -- Triton, discovered in 1846, and Nereid, discovered in 1949 -- are also the irregular ones. Triton orbits in a direction opposite to the planet's rotation, and Nereid's orbit is highly elliptical.

The six regular satellites were discovered by the Voyager probe during its encounter with Neptune. The three new satellites were missed by Voyager II because of their faintness and great distance from Neptune, the statement said.

An image of one of the three new Neptunian moons is online at http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/press/pr0303_image.html.

A newly discovered moon orbiting the planet Neptune is seen in this recent image from the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory's 4-Meter Blanco Telescope. Astronomers announced on January 13, 2003 that they have found three previously unknown moons around Neptune, bringing the total for the distant giant planet to 11. The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said the moons are the first to be discovered around Neptune since the NASA (news - web sites) Voyager II flyby in 1989, and the first discovered with a ground-based telescope since 1949. (Matt Holman, CFA/Reuters)

[Pyro7480]

Even with all the amazing discoveries astronomers have made with modern equipment such as the Hubble Space Telescope, all of which are thousands to millions of light years away, wonders are still waiting out there in our own solar system. God only knows (literally) what waits to be discovered out there. The wonders of His Creation never cease to amaze us.

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[Poohbah]

How is the Starship Enterprise like a piece of toilet paper?

[facedown]

ping

[UCANSEE2]

Shhhhhhhh........ I have my Star Cruiser parked out in orbit around Neptune. Thank God they haven't found it yet.

[My2Cents]

Going where no man has gone before? (Probably not true in SF.)

[Poohbah]

Going where no man has gone before? (Probably not true in SF.)

They both circle Uranus searching for Klingons.

[new cruelty]

'They both circle Uranus searching for Klingons. '

sigh,...there it is, accompaniment to any conversation dealing with all things astronomical, the requisite joke about my anus. : )

[My2Cents]

Geez. I should have guessed. :-)

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Pretty wild!

[ambrose]

How many moons are around Uranus?

[Poohbah]

I ain't sayin' :o)

[sheik yerbouty]

Why did Captain Kirk return to the head on The Enterprise?

[Poohbah]

Hit me with it...

[sheik yerbouty]

He went back to retrieve his captain's "logs"!

[SwinneySwitch]

Live long and prosper!

[Verginius Rufus]

The Bush tax cuts are to blame for this.

[Willie Green]

ping

[Brett66]

I'm anxiously awaiting pics of Pluto when Keck gets it's full interferometer setup online. It should be able to make out a good amount of surface detail.

[FreeReign]

How many moons are around Uranus?

A probe of Uranus -- Voyager 2 -- found 10 new moons for a total of 15 moons on your Uranus.