NEPTUNE
Chris Haney
Artemio Huerta
Raimar Ortiz
DATE OF DISCOVERY
• Neptune was discovered on September 23rd 1846, by
Urbain Le Varrier and Johann Galle.
SIZE OF NEPTUNE
• Neptune is the eighth and
farthest planet from the
Sun in the Solar System. It
is the fourth-largest planet
by diameter and the thirdlargest by mass. Among
the gaseous planets in the
Solar System, Neptune is
the most dense.
• Distance from Sun:
2,798,000,000 miles
(4,503,000,000 km)
• Mass: 102.4E24 kg (17.15
Earth mass)
• Orbital period: 165 years
• Length of day: 0d 16h 6m
• Gravity: 11.15 m/s²
NAME
• Neptune was named after The Roman God of the
sea.
FACTS ABOUT NEPTUNE
• Neptune is the smallest of the ice giants:
Despite being smaller than Uranus, Neptune has a
greater mass. Below its heavy atmosphere, Uranus is
made of layers of hydrogen, helium, and methane
gases. They enclose a layer of water, ammonia and
methane ice. The inner core of the planet is made of
rock.
FACTS ABOUT NEPTUNE
• The atmosphere of Neptune
is made of hydrogen and
helium, with some methane:
The methane absorbs red
light, which makes the planet
appear a lovely blue. High,
thin clouds drift in the upper
atmosphere.
• Neptune has a very active
climate:
Large storms whirl through
its upper atmosphere, and
high-speed winds track
around the planet at up 600
meters per second. One of
the largest storms ever seen
was recorded in 1989. It was
called the Great Dark Spot. It
lasted about five years.
THE GREAT DARK SPOT
• Pictures taken By the Hubble
telescope
• The Great Dark Spot was a huge
spinning storm in the southern
atmosphere of Neptune which
was about the size of the entire
Earth. Winds in this storm were
measured at speeds of up to
1,500 miles per hour. These
were the strongest winds ever
recorded on any planet in the
solar system! The Great Dark
Spot was first discovered when
the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by
Neptune in 1989. When the
Hubble Space Telescope looked
THE RINGS OF NEPTUNE
• Neptune's unusual rings are not uniform, but possess bright
thick clumps of dust called arcs. The rings are thought to be
relatively young and short-lived. Earth-based observations
announced in 2005 found that Neptune's rings are apparently
far more unstable than previously thought, with some
dwindling away rapidly, according to an article in the journal
Icarus.
FORMATION OF NEPTUNE
• Neptune is generally thought to have formed with the initial
buildup of a solid core followed by the capture of surrounding
hydrogen and helium gas in the nebula surrounding the early
sun. In this model, proto-Neptune formed over the course of 1
to 10 million years.
NEPTUNE'S MOONS
• Neptune has 14 known moons, named after lesser sea gods and nymphs from
Greek mythology. The largest by far is Triton, whose discovery on Oct. 10, 1846,
was in a sense enabled by beer — amateur astronomer William Lassell used
the fortune he made as a brewer to finance his telescopes.
• Triton is the only spherical moon of Neptune — the planet's other 13 moons are
irregularly shaped. It is also unique in being the only large moon in the solar
system to circle its planet in a direction opposite to its planet's rotation — this
"retrograde orbit" suggests that Triton may once have been a dwarf planet that
Neptune captured rather than forming in place, according to NASA. Neptune's
gravity is dragging Triton closer to the planet, meaning that millions of years
from now, Triton will come close enough for gravitational forces to rip it apart.
VIDEOS ABOUT NEPTUNE
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76xz74X4ivw
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmUvTH7sveg
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keNiv-T6WT4