110px|Triton
Triton is the largest moon of the planet Neptune, discovered on October 10, 1846, by William Lassell. It is the only large moon in the Solar System with a retrograde orbit, which is an orbit in the opposite direction to its planet's rotation. At 2700 km in diameter, it is the seventh-largest moon in the Solar System. Because of its retrograde orbit and composition similar to Pluto's, Triton is thought to have been captured from the Kuiper belt. Triton consists of a crust of frozen nitrogen over an icy mantle believed to cover a substantial core of rock and metal. The core makes up two-thirds of its total mass. Triton has a mean density of 2.061 g/cm3 and is composed of approximately 15–35% water ice. Triton is one of the few moons in the Solar System known to be geologically active. As a consequence, its surface is relatively young, with a complex geological history revealed in intricate and mysterious cryovolcanic and tectonic terrains. Part of its crust is dotted with geysers believed to erupt nitrogen. (more...)
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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
451:
The Council of Chalcedon, the fourth ecumenical council in Christianity, opened. It repudiated the Eutychian doctrine of monophysitism, and set forth the Chalcedonian Creed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Chalcedon
1076:
Demetrius Zvonimir, the last native king who exerted any real power over the entire Croatian state, was crowned. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demetrius_Zvonimir_of_Croatia
1897:
Composer Gustav Mahler was appointed the director of the Vienna Court Opera. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Mahler
1967:
Marxist revolutionary and guerrilla leader Che Guevara was captured near La Higuera, Bolivia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara
2001:
At Linate Airport in Milan, Italy, Scandinavian Airlines Flight SK686 collided on take-off with a Cessna Citation II business jet, killing 118 people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linate_Airport_disaster
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
stylite (n): (historical) A Christian ascetic who lived alone on top of a tall pillar http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stylite
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
One always feels that a merely educated man holds his philosophical views as if they were so many pennies in his pocket. They are separate from his life. Whereas with a cultured man there is no gap or lacuna between his opinions and his life. Both are dominated by the same organic, inevitable fatality. They are what he is. --John Cowper Powys http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Cowper_Powys