Editing Triton (moon) (section)

== Discovery and naming ==
[[File:William Lassell.jpg|thumb|left|upright|William Lassell, the discoverer of Triton]]
Triton was discovered by British astronomer [[William Lassell]] on October 10, 1846,<ref name="LassellDiscovery"/> just 17&nbsp;days after the [[discovery of Neptune]]. When [[John Herschel]] received news of Neptune's discovery, he wrote to Lassell suggesting he search for possible moons. Lassell discovered Triton eight days later.<ref name="LassellDiscovery"/><ref name="Lassell refs"/><!-- Vol. 7, No. 16 is June 11, Vol. 8, No. 1 is November 12; Vol. 7, No. 17 was a special issue published "during the vacation" --> Lassell also claimed for a period{{efn|Lassell rejected his previous claim of discovery when he found that the orientation of the supposed rings changed when he rotated his telescope tube; see p. 9 of Smith & Baum, 1984.<ref name="Smithetal1984"/>}} to have discovered rings.<ref name="Smithetal1984"/> Although Neptune was later confirmed to [[Rings of Neptune|have rings]], they are so faint and dark that it is not plausible he saw them. A brewer by trade, Lassell spotted Triton with his self-built {{cvt|61|cm}} [[aperture]] metal mirror reflecting [[telescope]] (also known as the "two-foot" reflector).<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=http://www.royalobservatorygreenwich.org/articles.php?article=1046|title=The Royal Observatory Greenwich – where east meets west: Telescope: The Lassell 2-foot Reflector (1847)|website=www.royalobservatorygreenwich.org|access-date=November 28, 2019}}</ref> This telescope was donated to the [[Royal Observatory, Greenwich]] in the 1880s, but was eventually dismantled.<ref name=":0"/>

Triton is named after the Greek sea god [[Triton (mythology)|Triton]] (Τρίτων), the son of [[Poseidon]] (the Greek god corresponding to the Roman [[Neptune (mythology)|Neptune]]). The name was first proposed by [[Camille Flammarion]] in his 1880 book ''Astronomie Populaire'',<ref name="Flammarion1880"/> and was officially adopted many decades later.<ref name="PMoore"/> Until the discovery of the second moon [[Nereid (moon)|Nereid]] in 1949, Triton was commonly referred to as "the satellite of Neptune". Lassell did not name his discovery; he later successfully suggested the name [[Hyperion (moon)|Hyperion]] for the eighth moon of [[Saturn]] when he discovered it.<ref name="IAU-solarsysNames"/>

Planetary moons other than Earth's were never given symbols in the astronomical literature. Denis Moskowitz, a software engineer who designed most of the [[dwarf planet]] symbols, proposed a Greek [[tau]] (the initial of Triton) combined with Neptune's trident as the symbol of Triton ([[File:Triton symbol (fixed width).svg|16px]]). This symbol is not widely used.<ref name=moons>{{cite web |url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2025/25079-phobos-and-deimos.pdf |title=Phobos and Deimos symbols |last1=Bala |first1=Gavin Jared |last2=Miller |first2=Kirk |date=7 March 2025 |website=unicode.org |publisher=The Unicode Consortium |access-date=14 March 2025 |quote=}}</ref>