Neptune Challenge: 1
- Press the “8” key and then the “G”
key to go to Neptune.
- Right click on Neptune and rotate it until you are looking
at the top of it (looking down on its axis).
- Press the “End” button until you are about a
million kilometers from Neptune.
- Press “M” to turn on the labels for the moons
and press “O” to show their orbits.
- Press “K” a few times to increase speed to 1,000
times or 10,000 times normal.
- Observe the orbit of the moons. Do you see anything unusual?
Triton exhibits what is called __________ rotation. Why does
this happen? Even scientists don’t know. There are five other moons
in the solar system that exhibit this type of orbit. Scientists believe that
these are captured asteroids. However, these moons are less than 10% the size
of Triton, which is bigger than the planet Pluto. Scientists theorize that
Triton came from the Kuiper Belt, a region just beyond the orbit of Neptune
containing many small icy bodies. They believe that Neptune captured Triton
several billion years ago.
