Naiad (moon)
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 Naiad or Thalassa as seen by Voyager 2 (smearing has caused excessive elongation) |
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| Discovery | |
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| Discovered by | Voyager Imaging Team |
| Discovered in | September 1989 |
| Orbital characteristics | |
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| Semi-major axis | 48 227 ± 1 km |
| Eccentricity | 0.0004 ± 0.0003 |
| Orbital period | 0.2943958 ± 0.0000002 d |
| Inclination | 4.75 ± 0.03° (to Neptune equator) 4.75° (to local Laplace plane) |
| Is a moon of | Neptune |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Dimensions | 96×60×52 km |
| Mass | ~1.9×1017 kg (based on assumed density) |
| Mean density | ~1.2 g/cm3 (estimate) |
| Rotation period | assumed synchronous |
| Axial tilt | ~zero presumably |
| Albedo (geometric) | 0.07[1] |
| Surface temp. | ~51 K mean (estimate) |
| Atmosphere | none |
Naiad or Neptune III is the closest moon to Neptune named after the Naiads of Greek legend. It was found sometime before mid-September, 1989 from the images taken by the Voyager 2 probe. The last moon to be discovered during the flyby, it was designated S/1989 N 6. Naiad is not a sphere and probably has not been changed by any internal geological processes after its formation. It orbits about 23,500 km above Neptune's cloud tops.
Since the Voyager 2 flyby, the Neptune system has been studied a lot from ground-based observatories and the Hubble Space Telescope as well. In 2002-03, Keck telescope looked at the system using adaptive optics and detected easily the biggest four closer satellites. Thalassa was found with some image processing, but Naiad was not located.
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| Moons | Naiad · Thalassa · Despina · Galatea · Larissa · Proteus · Triton · Nereid · Halimede · Sao · Laomedeia · Psamathe · Neso |  |
| Characteristics | Rings of Neptune · Great Dark Spot | |
| Discovery | John Couch Adams · Johann Gottfried Galle · William Lassell · Urbain Le Verrier | |
| Exploration | Voyager program · Voyager 2 | |
| Neptune Trojans | 2001 QR322 · 2004 UP10 · 2005 TN53 · 2005 TO74 · 2006 RJ103 · 2007 RW10 | |
