Neptune is seen here some 350,000 km away in this view from the gaseous planets' largest satellite, Triton. The methane in Neptunes' atmosphere absorbs the red light leaving the bluish cast that characterizes the planet. Tritons' surface is covered with a thin methane frost over a perma-ice surface - a hint of a slight methane haze on the distant horizon of this strange moon can be seen.

Although Neptune and Triton each have a similar methane composition the similarity ends there - Triton orbits the planet in a retrograde 157-degree angle to Neptunes' equator. This would seem to indicate Triton was a stranger to Neptune but was captured by the gravitational attraction long ago.

Triton is closer to Neptune than Luna is to Old Earth and is slowly spiraling in towards the huge planet. Sometime in the distant future Triton will break up under the influence of Neptunes' gravity and the remnants will form a ring of debris around the planet.

The indistinct horizon occurs only rarely - and is caused by the warming of methane gas as the satellites' polar cap is heated slightly by the sun (some 30-times the distance away from the sun that Old Earth is) during Tritons' 688 year-long seasonal cycle.