Neptune

Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and last of the known planets. While it is the
third largest planet with respect to mass, it is only the fourth largest in terms of diameter. Due to
its blue coloration, Neptune was named after the Roman god of the Sea.

It takes Neptune 164.8 Earth years to orbit the Sun. On 11 July 2011, Neptune
completed its first full orbit since its discovery in 1846.
Neptune was discovered by Jean Joseph Le Verrier. The planet was not known to
ancient civilizations because it is not visible to the naked eye. The planet was initially
called Le Verrier after its discoverer. This name, however, quickly was abandoned and
the name Neptune was chosen instead.
Neptune is the Roman God of the Sea. In Greek, Neptune is called Poseidon.
Neptune has the second largest gravity of any planet in the solar system second only
to Jupiter.
The orbit path of Neptune is approximately 30 astronomical units (AU) from the
Sun. This means it is around 30 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun.
The largest Neptunian moon, Triton, was discovered just 17 days after Neptune
itself was discovered.
Neptune has a storm similar the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. It is commonly known as
the Great Dark Spot and is roughly the size of Earth.
Neptune also has a second storm called the Small Dark Spot. This storm is around the
same size as Earths moon.
Neptune spins very quickly on its axis. The planets equatorial clouds take 18 hours to
complete one rotation. The reason this happens is that Neptune does not have a solid
body.
Only one spacecraft, the Voyager 2, has flown past Neptune. It happened in 1989 and
captured the first close-up images of the Neptunian system. It took 246 minutes four
hours and six minutes for signals from Voyager 2 to reach back to Earth.
The climate on Neptune is extremely active. In its upper atmosphere, large storms
sweep across it and high-speed solar winds track around the planet at up to 1,340 km per
second. The largest storm was the Great Dark Spot in 1989 which lasted for around five
years.
Like the other outer planets, Neptune possesses a ring system, though its rings are
very faint. They are most likely made up of ice particles and grains of dust with a carbon-
based substance coating them.
Neptune has 14 known moons. The largest of these moons is Titan a frozen world
which spits out particles of nitrogen ice and dust from below its surface. It is believed
that Titan was caught by the immense gravitational pull of Neptune and is regarded as
one of the coldest worlds in our solar system.
Neptune has an average surface temperature of -214C approximately -353F.