Fed2 Star - the newsletter for the space trading game Federation 2

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by ibgames

EARTHDATE: July 21, 2013

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REAL LIFE NEWS: NEPTUNE HAS A NEW MOON

by Hazed

Speaking of Neptunian moons, here in real life Neptune has another moon to add to its collection. The 14th moon is just 12 mile across and takes 23 hours to orbit the planet - which means it moves fast, compared to our moon which takes 28 days to orbit the Earth.

The new moon, which has been given the snappy name S/2004 N 1, was discovered by US astronomer Mark Showalter, using pictures from the Hubble space telescope to study segments of rings around Neptune. He tracked the movement of a white fleck which appeared over and over again in more than 150 pictures of the planet which Hubble snapped between 2004 and 2009.

The moon is so small that the Voyager spacecraft didn’t spot it when it passed close by Neptune in 1989.

“The moons and arcs orbit very quickly, so we had to devise a way to follow their motion in order to bring out the details of the system,” Mr Showalter explained.

“It’s the same reason a sports photographer tracks a running athlete - the athlete stays in focus, but the background blurs.”

The new moon joins the 13 moons previously discovered: Triton, Nereid, Naiad, Thalassa, Despina, Larissa, Proteus, and Galatea, plus five smaller, unnamed moons.

Source: http://www.nasa.gov/content/nasa-hubble-finds-new-neptune-moon/#.UeUgE9Jlmzs

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