![]() Jupiter's ice moon Europa is widely regarded as the most likely place to find extraterrestrial life. Unmasking Europa the search for life on Jupiter's ocean moon Voyager 1 is scheduled to fly past Saturn on November 13 of this year Voyager 2, in August of the following year. Sweeping by Jupiter and its five moons in 1979, the two spacecraft have sent back to Earth an enormous amount of data that will prove to be vital in understanding our solar system. Their first encounter was with the complex Jupiter planetary system 400 million miles away. In 1977, the United States launched two unmanned Voyager spacecraft that were to take part in an extensive reconnaissance of the outer planets over a 12-year period visiting the environs of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. How did this monster of a satellite get its strange properties, and why is Neptunes system so odd compared to what we The survival rate was only 12% in the high-mass case. In the low-mass case a third of the mass ratio of the Uranian satellite system 88% of simulations ended with Triton surviving on its high-inclination orbit. Tritons orbit is also highly inclined, and yet the moons path is nearly circular and lies very close to Neptune.The distribution of impact velocities in the authors simulations for primordial satellite interactions with Triton, in three cases of different satellite mass ratios. ![]() The orbit is retrograde Triton orbits in the opposite direction as Neptunes rotation which is unique behavior among large moons in our solar system. One of Neptunes moons is an exception to this, however: Triton, which contains 99.7% of the mass of Neptunes entire satellite system!Tritons orbit has a number of unusual properties. This gas giant has surprisingly few satellites only 14 compared to, say, the nearly 70 moons of Jupiter and most of them are extremely small. ![]() According to models, the circumplanetary gas disks that surround the planets during this time then become the birthplaces of the giant planets satellite systems, producing systems of co-planar and prograde (i.e., orbiting in the same direction as the planets rotation) satellites similar to the many- moon systems of Jupiter or Saturn.Tritons orbit is tilted relative to the inner Neptunian satellite orbits. Scientists have now explored the possibility that Neptune started its life with an ordinary system of moons that was later destroyed by the capture of its current giant moon, Triton.An Odd SystemOur current understanding of giant-planet formation predicts a period of gas accretion to build up the large size of these planets. Neptunes moon system is not what we would expect for a gas giant in our solar system. Did Triton Destroy Neptune's First Moons? ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |