Profile:
Mass: 102,410,000,000,000,000 billion kg (17.15x Earth)
Equatorial Diameter: 49,528 km
Polar Diameter: 48,682 km
Equatorial Circumference: 155,600 km
Known Moons: 14
Notable Moons: Triton
Known Rings: 5
Orbit Distance: 4,498,396,441 km (30.10 x Earth's Distance to the Sun)
Orbit Period: 60,190.03 Earth days (164.79 Earth years)
Surface Temperature: -201 °C
Dark, cold and whipped by supersonic winds, Neptune is the last of the hydrogen and helium gas giants in our solar system. More than 30 times as far from the sun as Earth, the planet takes almost 165 Earth years to orbit our sun. In 2011 Neptune completed its first orbit since its discovery in 1846.
Missions:
• Voyager 2 (1977)
NASA Mission to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and beyond
Neptune-sized planet with comet-like tail found with Hubble Telescope
June 26, 2015
Scientists have spied a new, possible “game-changer” of a planet in the depths of space.
Known as Gliese 436b, or GJ 436b, the exoplanet is the size of Neptune and is trailed by a gas stream similar to that of a comet, according to a journal articlepublished in Nature this week. Scientists working at NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory discovered it 33 light years away from Earth orbiting a red dwarf star and it is the first exoplanet of its kind ever seen, NBC News reported.
Is salt the key to unlocking the interiors of Neptune and Uranus?
June 22, 2015
The interiors of several of our Solar System's planets and moons are icy, and ice has been found on distant extrasolar planets, as well. But these bodies aren't filled with the regular kind of water ice that you avoid on the sidewalk in winter. The ice that's found inside these objects must exist under extreme pressures and high-temperatures, and potentially contains salty impurities, too.
Neptune's Moons
Neptune's small dark spot (D2) was obtained by Voyager 2's narrow-angle camera.Image Credit & Copyright: NASA/JPL
Image Credit & Copyright: NASA/JPL
These thermal images show a "hot" south pole on the planet Neptune. These warmer temperatures provide an avenue for methane to escape out of the deep atmosphere. Image Credit & Copyright: VLT/ESO/NASA/JPL/Paris Observatory
Neptune Information
10 Need-to-Know Things About Neptune:
-
If the sun were as tall as a typical front door, the Earth would be the size of a nickel and Neptune would be about as big as a baseball.
Vertical relief in Neptune's bright cloud streaks.
-
Neptune orbits our sun, a star. Neptune is the eighth planet from the sun at a distance of about 4.5 billion km (2.8 billion miles) or 30.07 AU.
-
One day on Neptune takes about 16 hours (the time it takes for Neptune to rotate or spin once). Neptune makes a complete orbit around the sun (a year in Neptunian time) in about 165 Earth years (60,190 Earth days).
-
Neptune is a sister ice giant to Uranus. Neptune is mostly made of a very thick, very hot combination of water (H2O), ammonia (NH3), and methane (CH4) over a possible heavier, approximately Earth-sized, solid core.
-
Neptune's atmosphere is made up mostly of hydrogen (H2), helium (He) and methane (CH4).
-
Neptune has 13 confirmed moons (and 1 more awaiting official confirmation of discovery). Neptune's moons are named after various sea gods and nymphs in Greek mythology.
-
Neptune has six rings.
-
Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have visited Neptune.
-
Neptune cannot support life as we know it.
-
At times during the course of Neptune's orbit, dwarf planet Pluto is actually closer to the sun, and us, than Neptune. This is due to the unusual elliptical (egg) shape of Pluto's orbit.
Latest News About Neptune
Neptune, the farthest planet from the sun, has 14 known moons. Almost half of the discoveries took place decades after NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft swung by the planet and its system, demonstrating just how far telescope technology has progressed.
Moons of this planet are named for Greek or Roman mythological characters with links to Neptune, Poseidon, or the ocean, according toInternational Astronomical Union guidelines. The irregular satellites are named after the daughters of Nereus and Doris, who were attendants of Neptune.
To learn more about Neptune's moons, click on the button below!
Research & Exploration
NASA's Voyager 2 satellite was the first and as yet only spacecraft to visit Neptune on Aug. 25, 1989. The satellite discovered Neptune's rings and six of the planet's moons — Despina, Galatea, Larissa, Naiad, Proteus and Thalassa. An international team of astronomers relying on ground telescopes announced the discovery of five new moons orbiting Neptune in 2003.
Physical Characteristics of Neptune
Neptune's cloud cover has an especially vivid blue tint that is partly due to an as-yet-unidentified compound and the result of the absorption of red light by methane in the planets mostly hydrogen-helium atmosphere. Photos of Neptune reveal a blue planet, and it is often dubbed an ice giant, since it possesses a thick, slushy fluid mix of water, ammonia and methane ices under its atmosphere and is roughly 17 times Earth's mass and nearly 58 times its volume.
Neptune's magnetic poles are tipped over by roughly 47 degrees compared with the poles along which it spins. As such, the planet's magnetic field, which is about 27 times more powerful than Earth's, undergoes wild swings during each rotation.
This photograph of Neptune was reconstructed from two images taken by Voyager 2's narrow-angle camera, through the green and clear filters. Image Credit & Copyright: NASA/JPL