NASA finds new moon on Neptune

Agence France-Presse

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The moon is the smallest ever glimpsed around Neptune and measures just about 12 miles (19 kilometers) across

NEPTUNE'S NEW MOON. This composite Hubble Space Telescope picture shows the location of a newly discovered moon, designated S/2004 N 1, orbiting Neptune. The black and white image was taken in 2009 with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 in visible light. Hubble took the color inset of Neptune on August 2009. Image courtesy NASA, ESA, M. Showalter/SETI Institute

WASHINGTON DC, USA – A tiny new moon has been spotted circling Neptune — the 14th known to be orbiting the faraway planet, the US space agency said on Monday, July 15.

The moon is the smallest ever glimpsed around Neptune and measures just about 12 miles (19 kilometers) across, based on observations from the Hubble Space telescope, NASA said.

Neptune is the farthest planet from the Sun, and NASA said the moon, named S/2004 N1, is about 100 million times fainter than the dimmest star that can be seen with the naked eye.

Astronomers found the moon by tracking a white dot that appeared repeatedly in more than 150 photos taken by Hubble from 2004 to 2009.

Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, found the moon July 1 while studying the faint arcs around Neptune, NASA said.

“The moons and arcs orbit very quickly, so we had to devise a way to follow their motion in order to bring out the details of the system,” he said.

“It’s the same reason a sports photographer tracks a running athlete — the athlete stays in focus, but the background blurs.”

The moon is believed to circle Neptune once every 23 hours. – Rappler.com

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