Neptune's 14th moon - S/2004 N 1 spot by M. Showalter in pictures taken by Hubble Space Telescope:
Neptune, the third largest planet by mass but fourth largest by diameter, is around 4,503,000 km away from sun.
It was considered to have 13 moons which are Triton, Nereid, Despina, Naiad, Thalassa, Proteus, Galatea, Larissa, Sao, Neso, Psamathe, Laomedeia and Halimede. The Triton discovered by William Lassel in 1846, is the largest among all.
But now one more tiny member has been added to this family of moons by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. According to them the new moon named "S/2004 N 1" is 100 million times fainter than the faintest star visible to the naked eye. The images of the planet Neptune taken by Hubble space telescope revealed this moon as white dot and is nearly 18 km in diameter.
Mark Showalter from SETI Institute discovered this tiny moon accidentally while he was conducting a study on the segments of rings around Neptune. After doing research on its movements based on several pictures of the planet taken since 2004 by Hubble Telescope, he came out with the news about the tiny new moon which even the Voyager 2 spacecraft despite flying past Neptune could not detect.
Neptune, the third largest planet by mass but fourth largest by diameter, is around 4,503,000 km away from sun.
It was considered to have 13 moons which are Triton, Nereid, Despina, Naiad, Thalassa, Proteus, Galatea, Larissa, Sao, Neso, Psamathe, Laomedeia and Halimede. The Triton discovered by William Lassel in 1846, is the largest among all.
But now one more tiny member has been added to this family of moons by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. According to them the new moon named "S/2004 N 1" is 100 million times fainter than the faintest star visible to the naked eye. The images of the planet Neptune taken by Hubble space telescope revealed this moon as white dot and is nearly 18 km in diameter.
Mark Showalter from SETI Institute discovered this tiny moon accidentally while he was conducting a study on the segments of rings around Neptune. After doing research on its movements based on several pictures of the planet taken since 2004 by Hubble Telescope, he came out with the news about the tiny new moon which even the Voyager 2 spacecraft despite flying past Neptune could not detect.
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