Galatea is an inner moon of Neptune. It has 176 km in diameter and is not spherical. It orbits Neptune in 0.429 Earth days.
Basic data[]
Not much is known about this moon. Surface details are not revealed in detail. Its shape appears to be not spherical.
It is believed that Galatea is made from coalesced fragments formed from Neptune's initial moon system, when it captured Triton. Another theory is that Galatea is a large fragment of a former moon.
Galatea appears to be made of water ice with some impurities.
Colonization[]
Galatea is too small to support an atmosphere. Therefore, terraforming is impossible. The moon is very close to Neptune's Roche limit. This implies that Neptune's gravity on the surface of the moon almost equals moon's own gravity. In such conditions, any building on the surface is in risk of being pulled apart. In addition, tidal stresses might cause cracks in the moon's internal structure.
Still, Galatea is suitable for building a base and small colonies. Industrial activity is possible. Even if it's made of water ice, the moon might contain fragments of the cores of former moons of Neptune. Extracting raw materials will be cheaper in that case and could support industrial activities on the surface.
The moon will be economically connected to the other inner moons of Neptune, like Larissa and Naiad, where flight windows are very common and the required Delta-v to move ships is not too big. Shipping goods between Galatea and Triton will be costly, because Triton is retrograde. Shipping goods to outer moons of Neptune and to the inner Solar System through the base on Halimede will also be costly. Because of this, if Neptune will become a free state one day, it should be a federation, made of Triton, Inner Moons and Outer Moons as autonomous states.