It's considered just about certain at this point that Triton is indeed a captured Kuiper Belt object -- but the trouble is that its capture has very dramatically modifed it. It almost certainly started out in a very elliptical orbit around Neptune, which was gradually circularized by tidal forces -- and the tidal heating of Triton during this period was more than adequate to completely melt all its ices, turning it into a sort of giant teardrop with a rocky core, and totally changing its initial physical and chemical makeup.
It is certainly different in major ways from Pluto, both in surface appearance and in surface and atmospheric chemical makeup -- and so, if we want to get a look at a big, relatively unmodified Kuiper object, we still have to go to Pluto.
Space/Science » in reply to Triton as a Kuiper belt object
Re: Triton as a Kuiper belt object
The whole thread (22 posts)
- SWRI/APL Pluto Misison Selected by NASA
- The mission is being called : New Horizons - Shedding Light on Frontier Worlds
- Re: The mission is being called : New Horizons - Shedding Light on Frontier Worlds
- The mission is being called : New Horizons - Shedding Light on Frontier Worlds