How Neptune's Moons Got Their Names Since Neptune was named for the Roman god of the sea, its moons were named for various lesser sea gods and nymphs in Greek mythology.
Circling the planet in the same direction as Neptune rotates, Proteus remains close to Neptune's equatorial plane. Proteus is one of the darkest objects in our solar system.
Discovery Triton was discovered on Oct. 10, 1846 by British astronomer William Lassell, just 17 days after Neptune itself was discovered. Overview Triton is the largest of Neptune's 13 moons. It is unusual because it is the only large moon in our solar system that orbits in the opposite direction of its planet's rotation―a retrograde orbit. Scientists think Triton is a Kuiper Belt Object ...
In fact, even though its orbit crosses Neptune's orbit, Pluto gets physically closer to Uranus than it ever does to Neptune. Kuiper Belt Moons and Binaries A fairly large number of KBOs either have moons – that is, significantly smaller bodies that orbit them – or are binary objects.
The planetary system we call home is located in an outer spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy. Our solar system consists of our star, the Sun, and everything bound to it by gravity – the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune; dwarf planets such as Pluto; dozens of moons; and millions of asteroids, comets, and meteoroids. Beyond our own solar system, there ...
In the outer solar system, the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn and the ice giants Uranus and Neptune have dozens of moons. As these planets grew in the early solar system, they were able to capture smaller objects with their large gravitational fields. How Moons Get Their Names Every moon discovered in the modern era gets a number first.