My focus in this series of late has been Solar System moons and that continues today with Triton, Neptune's largest moon. It is the 7th largest moon in the Solar System, but what makes it different is its retrograde motion. This means that Triton orbits in the opposite direction of most everything else in the Solar System. For example, if most objects are orbiting counter-clockwise around an object, Triton orbits clockwise.
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| Triton - NASA / Jet Propulsion Lab / U.S. Geological Survey / Public domain |
Why is it orbiting in the opposite direction? It's possible a collision caused it to orbit in the opposite direction, or more likely, it is a captured object from the Kuiper Belt early in the formation of the Solar System. Regardless, it now orbits in retrograde.
There are other interesting things about Triton. It is one of the few moons in the Solar System to be geologically active. This was discovered when Voyager 2 flew by Neptune in 1989 and took images of Triton. Active geysers were discovered!
Trition is a pretty cool moon, but to be honest, they are all cool in their own way. They are all different and each difference helps us learn something new about the Solar System.
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