Our Solar System is full of unsolved unknowns. Although we continue to discover new finds millions of light years away every day, our neighboring planets continue to bring us surprises. The latest, thanks to the technology of the Hubble telescope, is the discovery of the smallest moon that is orbiting Neptune.
S / 2004 N1, as the satellite is known, has a diameter of less than 19 kilometers and orbits about 105,000 kilometers away from Neptune, making itthe smallest moon in Neptune’s ring system. In fact, it is so small that it was not even detected by the Voyager 2 probe, which studied the planet and its rings in 1989. According to NASA data, the satelliteorbits between the moons Larissa and Proteus and takes about 23 hours to complete one revolution around Neptune.
The finding has been possible thanks to the exhaustive study of a mysterious white point that appeared in more than 150 photographs of Neptune taken by Hubble between 2004 and 2005.
Mark Showalter of the Extraterrestrial Intelligence Research Institute (SETI) in Mountain View, California, was the discoverer of the moon on July 1 while studying segments of Neptune’s rings. In his own words, “we had to find a way to follow the movement to get more details. It’s like a sports photographer following an athlete, the runner stays focused but lacks definition in the background.
13 other satellites orbit Neptune: Triton, Naiad, Nereida, Despina, Thalassa, Galatea, Proteo, Larisa, Neso, Sao, Psámate, Laomedeia and Halimede. What name will be given to the new Moon? For now we must name it as S / 2004 N1.
