Voyager 2 and the lost moon of Neptune

LarissaFirst spotted by Earth-based telescope observations in 1981, Neptune’s fourth-largest natural satellite was so tiny and dark that follow-up observations to confirm the discovery were unsuccessful…at least until Voyager 2 sights it on approach to the eighth planet, finding a tiny moon whose orbit corresponds to the theoretical orbit of the body originally sighted in 1981. In 1991, the International Astronomical Union will name this moon Larissa.

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