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Triton

File:Triton-usgs23-with-frame.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

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Also known as Neptune I, Triton (moon)

largest moon of Neptune

AI overview

Triton is the largest moon orbiting Neptune, the distant ice giant planet in our solar system. It matters because studying it helps us understand the composition and history of the outer solar system, and it displays unusual geological features like nitrogen geysers that make it scientifically significant.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Wikidata facts

Area
23018000
Diameter
2700
Radius
1353.4
Mass
21.39
Orbital period
-5.876854
Image
Neptune’s Moon Triton Fosters Rare Icy Union (gemini1903a) square.jpg
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orbital inclination
129.608
Commons category
Triton (moon)
time of discovery or invention
1846-10-10
Commons gallery
Triton (moon)
volume as quantity
10384000000
temperature
38
semi-major axis of an orbit
354759
orbital eccentricity
0.000016
density
2.061
albedo
0.76
apparent magnitude
13.47
absolute magnitude
-1.2
surface gravity
0.779
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via Wikidata · CC0

~31 min read

Article

Triton is the largest natural satellite of the planet Neptune. It is the only moon of Neptune massive enough to be rounded under its own gravity and hosts a thin, hazy atmosphere. Triton orbits Neptune in a retrograde orbit—revolving in the opposite direction to the parent planet's rotation—the only large moon in the Solar System to do so. Triton is thought to have once been a dwarf planet from the Kuiper belt, captured into Neptune's orbit by the latter's gravity.

At 2,710 kilometers (1,680 mi) in diameter, Triton is the seventh-largest moon in the Solar System, the second-largest planetary moon in relation to its primary (after Earth's Moon), and larger than all of the known dwarf planets. The mean density is 2.061 g/cm, reflecting a composition of approximately 30–45% water ice by mass, with the rest being mostly rock and metal. Triton is differentiated, with a crust of primarily ice atop a probable subsurface ocean of liquid water and a solid rocky-metallic core at its center. Although Triton's orbit is nearly circular with a very low orbital eccentricity of 0.000016, its interior may still experience tidal heating through obliquity tides.

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