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Neptune's Moons Are Caught in One of The Strangest Orbits Ever Seen - ScienceAlert
Jul 10, 2020 34 secs

The two moons in question are Naiad and Thalassa, both around 100 kilometres or 62 miles wide, which race around their planet in what NASA researchers are calling a "dance of avoidance".

Naiad takes seven hours to circle Neptune, while Thalassa takes seven and a half on the outside track.

The inner moons may represent Triton leftovers, the team suggests, with Naiad eventually kicked into its tilted orbit through an interaction with another of these nearby neighbours.

Besides plotting out the orbits of Naiad and Thalassa, the new study has also been able to take the first steps towards determining the composition of Neptune's inner moons, which seem to be made up of something similar to water ice.

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