Atmosphere of Triton

Atmosphere of Triton
Triton
Voyager 2 image of Triton after closest approach, showing the haze in Triton's atmosphere weakly scattering sunlight and "extending" its thin crescent
General information
Height~870 km (exobase)[1]
Average surface pressure~1.4 Pa (1.38×10−5 atm) (1989)[2]

~1.9 Pa (1.88×10−5 atm) (1997)[3]

~1.454 Pa (1.43×10−5 atm) (2022)[2]
Composition[4][a]
Nitrogen (N
2)		>99%
Methane (CH
4)		~0.025%
Carbon monoxide (CO)~0.06%

The atmosphere of Triton is the layer of gases surrounding Triton. Like the atmospheres of Titan and Pluto, Triton's atmosphere is composed primarily of nitrogen, with smaller amounts of methane and carbon monoxide. It hosts a layer of organic haze extending up to 30 kilometers above its surface and a deck of thin bright clouds at about 4 kilometers in altitude.[5] Due to Triton's low gravity, its atmosphere is loosely bound, extending over 800 kilometers from its surface.[6]

Triton, along with Saturn's moon Titan, is one of only two moons in the Solar System known to have significant, global atmospheres.[7][b] The surface pressure is only 14 microbars (1.4 Pa or 0.0105mmHg), 1⁄70000 of the surface pressure on Earth.[6] Similar to the atmosphere of Pluto, Triton's atmosphere is sensitive to seasonal changes; observations obtained in 1998 showed an increase in temperature, increasing the atmosphere's density.[13]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Krasnopolsky1993 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference Sicardy2024 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Elliot2000 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Lellouch2010 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Ohno2021 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Voyager was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Wind direction was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference IobookChap10 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference HubbleEuropaAtmo was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference Hall1998 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference Carlson 1999 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference Widemann Sicardy et al. 2009 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference MIT Triton was invoked but never defined (see the help page).


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