Psamathe
Moon· orbits Neptune
Psamathe — moon of Neptune.
Open in 3D viewSee Psamathe in the live, interactive 3D map
Key facts
Radius
20 km
1% of our Moon's radius
Orbit around Neptune
26.1 Earth years
9,519 Earth days
Science
Physical
- Radius (estimated)
- 20 km · 1% of our Moon's radius
- Sized from its brightness assuming a dark (~0.04) surface — never resolved, so the true diameter (~40 km) could be off by a factor of two.
Orbit around Neptune
- Distance from Neptune
- 0.327 AU
- From JPL orbital elements
- Orbital period
- 26.06 years
- From JPL orbital elements
- Eccentricity
- 0.1702
- From JPL orbital elements
- Inclination to the J2000 equator
- 139.26 °
- From JPL orbital elements
Radiation & temperature
- Insolation
- 0.0011 S⊕ · 1/912 of the sunlight Earth receives
- Computed from the distance to the Sun (inverse-square; Earth's sunlight = 1), before any atmosphere.
Discovery & history
- By
- S.S. Sheppard, D.C. Jewitt, J. Kleyna
Psamathe was discovered in 2003 by S.S. Sheppard and colleagues. Neptune's moons are named after sea deities and nymphs of Greek mythology. Beyond its discovery and naming, little more about it has been individually recorded.
Images
No resolved image of this moon has been released: telescopes and passing spacecraft have recorded it only as a faint point of light.