{"id":8238,"date":"2026-05-20T19:01:51","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T19:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=8238"},"modified":"2026-05-20T19:01:51","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T19:01:51","slug":"neptunes-mysterious-moon-nereid-may-be-an-original-study-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=8238","title":{"rendered":"Neptune\u2019s mysterious moon Nereid may be an original, study shows"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer<\/strong><\/p>\n

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Neptune\u2019s far-flung moon Nereid may be the last of the planet\u2019s original companions that managed to survive a cosmic crash, scientists reported Wednesday.<\/p>\n

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Sixteen known moons circle Neptune, our solar system\u2019s eighth and most distant planet. Neptune\u2019s biggest moon, Triton, barged in from the solar system\u2019s frigid outskirts billions of years ago, scattering the planet\u2019s original moons and putting them on destructive collision courses.<\/p>\n

A team led by the California Institute of Technology used NASA\u2019s Webb Space Telescope to study Nereid. Their observations suggest that Nereid is no party crasher like Triton and likely survived by escaping into its extreme, elliptical orbit around Neptune.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we know about Nereid is very limited. For its size, Nereid is extremely understudied,\u201d said study author Matthew Belyakov, of Caltech.<\/p>\n

Neptune has only been visited by one spacecraft, NASA\u2019s Voyager 2 in 1989. Nereid was discovered 40 years earlier by Dutch astronomer Gerard Kuiper, who named the moon after the sea nymphs in Greek mythology.<\/p>\n

Roughly 220 miles (350 kilometers) across, Nereid has an extremely eccentric orbit for a moon. It takes practically an entire Earth year for Nereid to orbit Neptune, with the moon passing less than 1 million miles (1.4 million kilometers) from the giant icy planet at one end of its egg-shaped loop and as far as 6 million miles (9.6 million kilometers) at the other end.<\/p>\n

Like so many other moons in the outer solar system, Nereid was long suspected of migrating to Neptune\u2019s neighborhood from the frigid outlying expanse known as the Kuiper Belt. But using the Webb telescope, scientists determined that Nereid\u2019s composition was inconsistent with Kuiper Belt objects \u2014 it had too much ice. That suggests it was part of Neptune\u2019s system all along.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have all that much evidence left around Neptune \u2014 the system doesn\u2019t have very many moons left,\u201d Belyakov said in an email. But the latest observations \u201cstrongly rule out\u201d that Nereid wandered by like so many others and got ensnared by planetary gravity.<\/p>\n

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The findings appear in the journal Science Advances.<\/p>\n

This is \u201can exciting result,\u201d said Carnegie Science planetary astronomer Scott Sheppard, who was not part of the study.<\/p>\n

The observations show for the first time that Nereid\u2019s peculiar orbit matches \u201cthe history we might expect from a moon that originally formed close to Neptune and was later pushed outward from the capture of Triton,\u201d Sheppard said in an email.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Neptune\u2019s innermost moons likely formed out of the shattered remains of the originals that were Triton\u2019s casualties, according to Belyakov and his team.<\/p>\n

All three of the solar system\u2019s other giant planets have more moons, with Saturn topping the charts at 292.<\/p>\n

A visiting spacecraft could clinch the Neptunian system\u2019s origin story, according to scientists, although none are currently planned.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Neptune’s mysterious, far-flung moon Nereid may be the last of the planet’s original companions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nNeptune\u2019s mysterious moon Nereid may be an original, study shows - Silicon Valley Moving Post<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=8238\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Neptune\u2019s mysterious moon Nereid may be an original, study shows - Silicon Valley Moving Post\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Neptune's mysterious, far-flung moon Nereid may be the last of the planet's original companions.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=8238\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Silicon Valley Moving Post\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-05-20T19:01:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=8238#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=8238\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/636e2e5a10a21cf87fe6eb5951e8a6b7\"},\"headline\":\"Neptune\u2019s mysterious moon Nereid may be an original, study shows\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-20T19:01:51+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=8238\"},\"wordCount\":560,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=8238#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/b2db1c8b24a52b4d7530f641103c17e3.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=8238#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=8238\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=8238\",\"name\":\"Neptune\u2019s mysterious moon Nereid may be an original, study shows - 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