While some astronomers have focused their gaze into deep space in search of new exoplanets that could be potentially inhabited, others continue to research our own solar system, which, surprisingly, continues to be fraught with many surprises.
Not so long ago, we wrote that the two new discovered satellites of Pluto, finally, got their official names, but now it's time for the farthest, eighth planet of our system - Neptune, which, as it turns out, found another moon, about which scientists did not even suspect until today.
This discovery took place on July 1, when the Hubble Space Telescope recorded the presence of Neptune another satellite.
“The speed of movement and the orbit of the moon did not allow us to find out all the details earlier. A simple example of this is when a photographer takes a picture of a running athlete. While the athlete himself is in the focus of the camera, the picture in the background is blurred, ”said SETI Institute researcher Mark Showalter in an official statement published by NASA.
According to Showalter, the new moon of Neptune was discovered by analyzing more than 150 archival photographs taken by Hubble in the period from 2004 to 2009.
The new and 14th satellite of Neptune, which received the ugly name S / 2004 N 1, is located between Proyeus and Larissa - the second and third largest moons of this planet.
Interesting in this news is that the latest information that astronomers received about Neptune dates back to 1989, when the Voyager 2 spacecraft passed the fourth largest and third largest planet in our solar system. But even then, because of their fuzzy shape in the space horizon, scientists could not find any signs of S / 2004 N 1.
The article is based on materials .
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