Prior to Voyager 2’s encounter, Neptune’s only known moons were Triton, discovered visually through a

telescope in 1846, and Nereid, discovered in telescopic photographs more than a century later, in 1949.
(Neptune’s moons are named after figures in Greek mythology usually connected with Poseidon [the
Roman god Neptune] or with water.) With a diameter nearly that of Earth’s Moon, Triton is, by far,
Neptune’s largest satellite—more than six times the size of its largest known sibling, Proteus, discovered
by Voyager 2 in 1989. Triton is the only large moon of the solar system that travels around its planet in
retrograde fashion. Moreover, whereas the orbits of the largest moons in the solar system are inclined
less than about 5° to their planet’s equator, Triton’s orbit is tilted more than 157° to Neptune’s equator.
Nereid, which revolves more than 15 times farther from Neptune on average than does Triton, has the
most eccentric orbit of any known moon. At its greatest distance, Nereid is nearly seven times as far
from Neptune as at its smallest distance. Even at its closest approach, Nereid is nearly four times the
distance of Triton.

In 1989 Voyager’s observations added six previously unknown moons to Neptune’s system. All are less
than half of Triton’s distance from Neptune and are regular moons—i.e., they travel in prograde, nearly
circular orbits that lie near Neptune’s equatorial plane. In 2002–03 five additional tiny moons, estimated
to be about 15–30 km (9–18 miles) in radius, were discovered in Earth-based observations. These are
irregular, having highly eccentric orbits that are inclined at large angles to the planet’s equator; three
orbit in the retrograde direction. Their mean distances from Neptune lie roughly between 15 million and
48 million km (9 million and 30 million miles), well outside the orbit of Nereid. In 2013 a tiny moon,
Hippocamp, about 17 km (11 miles) in radius, was discovered in a Hubble Space Telescope image. Its
orbit was tracked in archival images as far back as 2004. It orbits between Larissa and Proteus, two
moons discovered by Voyager. Properties of the known Neptunian moons are summarized in the table,
with names and orbital and physical characteristics.

(Source: britannica.com)