One of the many reasons I started this vanity project, was an ill-conceived idea of promoting science literacy. Indeed, I don’t talk enough about science, but every 6-8 weeks, the world’s least asked-for tour, much like a zombie, is resurrected, bumbling and stumbling, stumbling and bumbling into the world.
Yes, search your feelings, you know it to be true! Some Geek Told Me’s Tour of the Solar System is back, with another insightful profile on one of our distant neighbours.
If by a cruel twist of fate you haven’t read any of the previous entries, here is the magnificent list:
1.) Meet the Family
2.) The Sun
4.) Mercury
5.) Venus
7.) The Moon
8.) Mars
10.) Ceres
11.) Jupiter
12.) The Galilean moons
13.) Saturn
14.) Titan
15.) The Moons of Saturn
16.) Uranus
17.) Titania
18.) The Moons of Uranus
19.) The Literary Moons of Uranus
20.) Neptune
This is our 21st entry, so without being invited to a dodgy 21st birthday with tequila shots, let’s welcome the new entry into the fold, Triton, where it can proudly stand with The Moon, Titan, and Titania. Cool.
If you’re a Marvel fan, you would have recognised the name Triton from the Inhumans. He’s the green guy who can breathe underwater, if you don’t already know. Sorry, it can be a surprise that some people don’t know things like that.
Triton and his namesake share a similar quality; they are both quite odd. Neptune has 16 known moons, and Triton is the largest. It has a diameter of 2,710 km, which is roughly the distance between London to Moscow. Triton is the seventh-largest moon in the Solar System, as well as being Neptune’s largest moon. It’s larger than Pluto, just don’t mention it because Pluto is still sensitive about being kicked out of the planet club.
Triton was discovered by William Lassell, on 10th October 1846, a mere 17 days after the discovery of Neptune. As we have already established Triton was not named after a comic book character, but rather the standard way, after a Greek god. Triton was the son of Poseidon (Greek)/Neptune (Roman), the god of the seas and oceans. Oh, if you’re wondering if Poseidon was like his big brother Zeus, by having a wandering eye and not being faithful, then you would be correct.
Triton orbits Neptune at around 354,800 km, which is closer than what the Moon orbits Earth. In addition to this, generally speaking of course, Triton’s distance to the Sun is about 4.3 billion km, which means it takes the Sun’s light about 4 hours to travel that distance to Triton. 4.3 billion km in 4 hours? That’s almost as fast as it takes UMC1 and UMC2 to trash their bedroom.
Do you remember when I said Triton is quite odd? Well, Triton’s orbit and rotation are great examples of this. Among all of the large moons within the Solar System, Triton has the distinctive honour of being the largest moon to have a retrograde orbit around its planet. If you remember from previous tour stops, a moon that has a retrograde orbit, is when a moon orbits the planet’s rotation in the opposite direction.
Triton rotates on its axis every 5.87 days or 5 days and 21 hours, and has an orbital speed of about 4.39 km per second. Triton is also tidally locked, which is when a planet or moon like Triton, matches its rotation period to another cosmic body, like Neptune.
Just like the Moon is tidally locked to Earth, Triton has one side that is always facing Neptune, as it’s locked. If you can somehow survive and live on Neptune, you would only ever see the same side of Triton. I love science!
A lot of the data and information that scientists first used to measure and assess Triton, was made by our old friend, the Voyager 2 spacecraft, as it did a flyby in 1989. When Voyager 2 surveyed Triton, it only managed to map 40% of the surface.
Ok, what else can we learn about the sixteenth-largest object in the Solar System? Triton has some impressive physical features like a large southern polar cap, impact craters, mounds, and pits created by icy lava flows. This is because Triton is an active place for cryovolcanism, with the largest being called Leviathan Patera, which is a caldera that stretches 100 km in diameter. Triton is only a handful of cosmic bodies in the Solar System that has a cryovolcanic network.
Triton’s surface is geologically young and is primarily made of frozen nitrogen (55%), with water ice (15-35%) and some frozen carbon dioxide (10-20%). Some scientists believe that a subsurface ocean of liquid water may exist beneath the icy crust, like several other moons, such as Europa, Enceladus, and Titania. Imagine the possibility of life existing there! Granted, it would be in the form of micro-organisms, but it would still be amazing.
The composition of Triton’s atmosphere is exactly made you would imagine it to be: heavily made of nitrogen (95%), mixed with traces of carbon monoxide and methane. It is about 70,000 times less dense than Earth’s atmosphere. The atmosphere extends to about 30 km above the surface, with clouds can be found at around 4 km.
Because of its insane distance from the Sun, and its 30° axial tilt, Triton has seasons that can last 40 years, which is pure nightmare fuel. Westeros has nothing on Triton. And speaking of nightmare fuel, the surface temperature can get down to an average of −235 °C. This makes Triton one of the coldest objects in our Solar System. Even Captain Cold, Iceman, and Mr Freeze would think twice about visiting Triton.
Some other random facts about Triton include:
- The geysers on Triton eject nitrogen gas from beneath the surface, creating long plumes that can reach heights of up to 8 km.
- Triton’s density is about twice that of water, making it more dense than almost any other satellite of an outer planet.
- Scientists believe that Triton is a Kuiper Belt Object that was captured by Neptune’s gravity millions of years ago.
- In approximately 3.5 billion years, Triton will come too close to Neptune in its orbit, and the planet’s gravitational pull will cause Triton to break apart. This event will lead to the formation of a ring system around Neptune.
There are more things to discuss and write about Triton, but like always, my desire for sleep is stronger. What is your favourite fact about Triton? As always, please let me know, and I hope the tour is living up to its hype.
Thank you for reading, following, and subscribing to Some Geek Told Me. I still write daily nonsense on Twitter and Mastodon, if you want to check it out. Please remember to walk your dog, read a banned book, don’t put tomato in your fruit salad, and I’ll see you next week.
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