Editing Proteus (moon) (section)

== Origin ==

Proteus, like the other inner moons of Neptune, is unlikely to be an original body that formed with it, and is more likely to have accreted from the rubble that was produced after Triton's capture. Triton's orbit upon capture would have been highly eccentric, and would have caused chaotic perturbations in the orbits of the original inner Neptunian moons, causing them to collide and reduce to a disc of rubble.<ref name="Goldreich1989" /> Only after Triton's orbit became circularised did some of the rubble disc re-accrete into the present-day moons of Neptune.<ref name="BanfieldMurray1992" />

Proteus initially had a smaller orbit around Neptune, and may have formed closer to the planet. At the time of the formation of Proteus, its orbit was estimated to be {{convert|8000|km|mi|abbr=on}} less than its current distance from Neptune.<ref name="Showalter2019"/> Over time, Proteus migrated outward from Neptune through tidal interactions. During the outward migration of Proteus, collisions and [[impact event]]s may have formed large craters and had ejected fragments of Proteus into orbit around Neptune. A collision of Proteus and another object could possibly explain the origin of Neptune's smaller moon [[Hippocamp (moon)|Hippocamp]], which orbits close to Proteus.<ref name="Showalter2019"/>