It's the last of the planets in our solar system. It's more than 30 times as far from the Sun as Earth is. Neptune is very similar to Uranus. It's made of a thick soup of water, ammonia, and methane over an Earth-sized solid center.
Its atmosphere is made of hydrogen, helium, and methane. The methane gives Neptune the same blue color as Uranus. The Latest. Global Color Mosaic of Triton. First Look: Neptune Rings. Kid-Friendly Neptune Neptune is dark, cold, and very windy. Neptune has six rings, but they're very hard to see. Use Chemistry. JPL's lucky peanuts are an unofficial tradition at big mission events. Its atmosphere also contains icy clouds and the fastest winds recorded in the solar system.
Particles of icy methane and minor gases in the extremities of the atmosphere give Neptune its deep blue colour. The striking blue and white features of Neptune also help to distinguish it from Uranus. Just like a similar mix also gives Uranus a blue-ish tint. Neptune is one of the windiest worlds in our Solar System.
They race across the planet at speeds of more than 1, miles per hour. These wild winds also create oval-shaped storms.
Since then, it has disappeared, but numerous others have appeared and disappeared in different parts of the planet. Neptune has 13 moons plus one pending official confirmation. The largest moon is called Triton, discovered by William Lassell just 17 days after the planet was discovered.
Global color mosaic of Triton, taken in by Voyager 2 during its flyby of the Neptune system. Neptune has five known rings. Starting near the planet and moving outward, they are named Galle, Leverrier, Lassell, Arago, and Adams. The rings are thought to be relatively young and short-lived. This is similar to the rings of Uranus, but very different than the icy rings around Saturn. This is seen as an indication that Neptune probably captured Triton — i.
Triton is locked into a synchronous rotation with Neptune, and is slowly spiraling inward towards the planet. This ring will be pulled inward and crash into the planet. It is too bad that such an event will be happening so very long from now, because it would be amazing to watch!
This was the closest approach to any object that Voyager 2 made since it was launched from Earth. Originally thought to be a large cloud itself, the information gathered by Voyager helped to shed light on the true nature of this phenomenon. However, a possible Flagship Mission has been envisioned by NASA to take place sometime during the late s or early s.
The proposed mission would go into orbit around the planet and study its weather, magnetosphere, ring system and moons. However, no information on this project has been forthcoming in recent years and it appears to have been scrapped. Another, more recent proposal by NASA was for Argo — a flyby spacecraft that would be launched in , which would visit Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and a Kuiper belt object. The focus would be on Neptune and its largest moon Triton, which would be investigated around And these are just of the things that make Neptune such a fascinating planet, and one that is worthy of study.
One can only hope that future missions will be launched to the outer Solar System that will be able to dig deeper into its many mysteries. We have many interesting articles about Neptune here at Universe Today. Astronomy Cast has some interesting episodes about Neptune.
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