It is possible this atmosphere made out of Nitrogen and methane could be causing a greenhouse effect that heats up the moon enough so that the elements below the crust have to find a way out through eruptions. While it is thin compared to a planet’s atmosphere, it is thick when compared to other moons. Unlike most moons, Triton has a relatively dense atmosphere that might be partially responsible for its volcanic activity. This means that if you could stand on Neptune, you would only see one side of Titon aat all times and you couldn’t see the “dark side” of the moon.

Just like our Moon, Triton is tidally locked to its planet, which means its rotation is synced to the orbital plane of Neptune. Their eruptions let out ammonia, methane, and maybe even ice water. These are called cryovolcanoes and they are made out of frozen nitrogen and other types of ice. It is bigger than Pluto and Eris, but it is about 20% smaller than our Moon. Triton is larger than some dwarf planets.The only other satellites with similar orbits are some of the smaller, distant, and irregular moons of Jupiter and Saturn. It is the only large moon in the Solar system that does this. That is, Triton rotates in the opposite direction as its planet’s rotation. Triton fact sheet Triton key characteristics And even though there’s a long list of interesting moons that need to be studied further like Europa and Io, the idea of sending a probe to Triton has started to gain traction. This is why in recent decades, some astronomers have tried to push projects for NASA to send a probe to study Neptune and Triton. As it turns out, there’s geological activity, an atmosphere that is going through a change period, an intense ionosphere, and maybe even liquid water? This changed in 1989 when the Voyager 2 space probe flew by on its way out of the Solar system.Īstronomers realized Triton was very much alive. Because it is so far away from the Sun, we assumed it was mostly inactive and uninteresting.

It was very curious.įor more than a century we didn’t know much about Triton. At the time astronomers didn’t even know that was possible. It was (and still is) the only moon in the solar system that has a retrograde orbit, which means it orbits in the opposite direction of the planet’s rotation. Since its discovery in 1864, it was obvious that there was something very interesting about it. Triton is one of the most intriguing objects in the Solar system.

Fun facts about io moon