Astronomers discover 14th new moon of Neptune

The Hubble space telescope has found a new moon orbiting Neptune, the 14th known to be circling the blue-green planet.

The new moon, Neptune’s tiniest at just 19.3 km across, is designated S/2004 N 1 is located between Larissa and Proteus. It orbits Neptune in 23 hours.

It even escaped detection by NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft, which flew past Neptune in 1989 and surveyed the planet’s system of moons and rings.

Neptune's largest moon, Triton, was discovered in 1846, just days after the planet itself was found. Nereid, Neptune's third largest moon was found in 1949.

Images taken by NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft unveiled the second largest moon, Proteus, and five smaller moons, Naiad, Thalassa, Despina, Galatea and Larissa. Ground-based telescopes found Halimede, Laomedeia, Sao and Nestor in 2002. Sister moon Psamathe turned up a year later.

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