Triton

Thumbnail of Triton

Triton circles Neptune in a retrograde orbit in under six days. Tidal forces on Triton are causing it to spiral slowly towards the planet. In 10 to 1000 million years (a short time in astronomical terms), the moon will be so close that Neptunian gravity will tear it apart, forming a spectacular ring to accompany the planet's modest current rings.
Triton's landscape is as strange and unexpected as those of Io and Miranda. The moon has more rock than its counterparts at Saturn and Uranus. Triton's mantle is probably composed of water-ice, but its crust is a thin veneer of nitrogen and methane. The moon shows two dramatically different types of terrain: the so-called "cantaloupe" terrain and a receding ice cap.

Dark streaks appear on the ice cap. These streaks are the fallout from geyser-like volcanic vents that shoot nitrogen gas and dark, fine-grained particles to heights of 2-8 kilometers (1-5 miles). Triton's thin atmosphere, only 1/70,000th as thick as Earth's, has winds that carry the dark particles and deposit them as streaks on the ice cap -- the coldest surface yet discovered in the solar system (-235 degrees Celsius, -391 degrees Fahrenheit). Triton might be more like Pluto than any other object spacecraft have so far visited.