The satellites of Neptune are very strange. Apparently Neptune's original moon system was completely upended, nearly obliterated, by its capture of Triton from the Kuiper belt at some point in the past. All its other remaining moons are much smaller.Triton is very large, compared with Neptune. (Its size relative to its primary is exceeded only by Luna.) In fact it is larger than Pluto. Triton's orbit is nearly circular, highly inclined and, uniquely among the large moons of the Solar System, retrograde.When I was a kid only two moons of Neptune were known, Triton and Nereid. It turns out that Nereeid is only _third_-largest. The second-largest, Proteus, wasn't discovered until 1989. I guess this is mainly because it orbits much closer to Neptune than Nereid does. (Nereid's orbit is highly eccentric.) It's also a little less bright.#astronomy #neptune #triton #til
