Why does Neptune have moons?

Question

My son is doing a science project. He has to research the planet Neptune, one of the questions the teacher wants to know is why does this planet have moons. I'm not sure how to answer this questions. So if anybody can send links about this please respond. Thank you.

Answer 1

That's a weird question..... Perhaps she meant how did it get its moons?

All the jovian planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, also called the gas giant planets) have moons. Most of these moons are really tiny compared to their planet and compared to our moon (which, by the way, is HUGE compared to its planet, Earth, being one-quarter the diameter of Earth). Scientists believe that the gas giant planets formed almost like mini solar systems, with their own system of moons forming in orbit around the planet in a manner similar to the way the planets formed in orbit around the Sun. Some moons (most notably Triton for Neptune) were captured after formation, however. It's actually pretty impressive the number of similarities between Triton and Pluto.

There are lots of astronomy websites out there for kids. NASA has a good one:
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forkids/home/index.html

Here's a great website for the planets in general. It used to be called, simply, Nine Planets, but of course now they have to change their name! I've given the link for their Neptune site:
http://www.seds.org/nineplanets/nineplanets/neptune.html
This site is not specifically for kids, so depending on how old your son is this site may be over his head.

You can find other astronomy websites for kids just by searching for "astronomy kids" or something similar.

Answer 2

Planets can have moons for a number of reasons. Triton, Neptune's largest, has a retrograde orbit indicating that it was probably an independent planetoid (probably from the Kuiper Belt) that was captured by Neptune's gravitational field.

The rest of Neptune's moons are very small and may have developed my accretion of material from Neptune's rings and other material or could be other examples of capture.

Answer 3

First of all, a planet is considered a planet when it orbits the sun, and it has enough mass to make moons orbit around it. A big mass has gravity. Since Neptune is one of the Gas Giants, it has a lot of mass, therefore a lot of gravity to pull the moon into orbit.

Answer 4

i do no longer dream. On uncommon activities i'm going to adventure a lucid dream, and that i won't be able to tell the version between certainty, what's fiction what's non fiction. while i replaced into youthful I had nightmares each and every evening, they have been torturous yet beautiful. between the main straight forward nightmares I had i could be in a crimson haze, the pits of hell i could desire to call it the only subject approximately this nightmare is i might desire to in no way bodily circulate, i could be conscious nevertheless interior the haze yet my physique does no longer enable flow and that i could hear faint noises. My different nightmares could be of altered studies from the authentic international. as an occasion i could see a ineffective death female with decayed dermis attempting to climb up my dying tree, she could no longer attain it so she began to consume it. the section replaced into green and yellow, variety of loopy like a clockwork precis drawing. i do no longer understand the place the moon and neptune is in my chart. i'm a virgo.

Answer 5

Why not? most of other planet have their own moon (sattelite), mars has two moons or more (because there are recent discoveries regarding to this), jupiter, Uranus...they all have their own sattelite, because sattelite is that object in space that are 'catched' by the planet's gravity and so they caught up in it's orbit, it makes them evolved around the planet just like moon evolve around earth.