Neptune

Neptune is a dark , cold, and extremely windy planet . It is the last of the planets that we can find in our solar system. It is more than 30 times farther from the sun than Earth and it is also very similar to Uranus. It is made of a thick mass of water , ammonia, and methane on a solid center the size of the Earth. Its atmosphere is made up of hydrogen , helium, and methane, and this methane gives Neptune the same blue color as Uranus. Neptune has six rings, but they are very difficult to see. It belongs to the group of gas giant planets.

Neptune Characteristics:

Among its main characteristics we can mention the following:

• It is a smaller planet than Uranus , but it has a higher density.
• It has different spots similar to those of the Jupiter storms .
• Its largest spot was known as the dark spot and was very similar in size to the earth.
• It has the winds stronger than any planet in the solar system and many of them rotate in the opposite direction to the movement of rotation .
• Its average surface temperature is -200 ° C.
• It has a surface gravity in Ecuador of 11 m / s2
• Its equatorial radius is 24,746 km and its mean distance from the sun is 4,504,300,000 km.

Story:

In Roman mythology, Neptune, who, in Greek was known as  Poseidon ,  was the god of the sea. After the discovery of Uranus, it was noted that its orbit was not as it should be according to Newton’s laws . Neptune was observed for the first time by Galle and d’Arrest on September 23, 1846. There was an international dispute between the English and the French about the priority and the right to name the new planet; however, they are currently jointly credited with the discovery of Neptune. More than two centuries earlier, in 1613, Galileo  observed him when he was very close to Jupiter, but he thought it was just a star , he noticed that it was moving slightly relative to another nearby star but cloudy skies prevented observations and its discovery at that time.

Composition:

In much the same way as the planet Uranus, Neptune is composed of a rocky core placed within an icy shell , around which can be found a fairly dense and thick layer of atmospheric gases that comprise almost 10% of its total mass. The planet’s core is made up of molten rock , water , liquid ammonia , and methane , and its surface layer is made up of hydrogen, helium, water, and methane. A curious fact is that the exterior of the planet is extremely icy but its center can reach temperatures of up to 4700 ° C.

Neptune’s atmosphere:

Receives little heat from the sun, but it seems that the planet has an internal source of heat producing weather systems around the globe. Its atmosphere has a band structure and gigantic hurricanes are produced in them . Your cloud system is very active and the speed of the wind reaches 2,000 km / h. The atmosphere at high altitudes is made up of 80% hydrogen and 19% helium, the rest is methane . Its lower region is divided into the troposphere , stratosphere and tropopause.

Magnetic field:

Its magnetic field is quite inclined with respect to the axis of rotation, this could be due to the internal flows that the planet has and the inclination in which it is located. The dipole of the magnetic field, at Neptune’s magnetic equator , is about 14 micro teslas (0.14 G) .35.

Rotation and translation of Neptune:

It is the planet with the longest year . It takes the planet 164.8 Earth years to orbit the Sun. Our planet orbits the Sun nearly 165 times before Neptune orbits once, and it hasn’t even seen a full orbit since the planet was discovered.

Satellites:

Fourteen satellites are exactly known on Neptune. The largest and most important is called Triton , it is immense in size and has a retrograde orbit . Nitrogen geysers have been found on its surface. At first, only Triton and Nereida were known , but with Voyager 2, six different ones were discovered:  Naiad, Thalassa, Despina, Galatea, Larisa and Proteus . Most of them are considered as remains of a moon that was destroyed.

Rings:

Their rings are weak and wispy, made up of dust . Neptune has five rings: Galle , Le Verrier , Lassel , Arago and Adams , which are in keeping with the astronomers who have done the most research on the planet. They are believed to be composed of organic matter that has been produced by the magnetosphere .

Temperature:

Neptune’s temperature is -223 ° C and in degrees Fahrenheit it is – 370 ° .

Neptune’s great dark spot:

It is a spot detected in the southern hemisphere by NASA’s Voyager 2 space probe . It is thought that it may have been a hole in the atmosphere similar to that of the earth’s ozone layer . It is almost the same size as the earth and the winds around it have reached more than 2,400 km / h.

Curiosities:

• It is smaller than Saturn , Jupiter and Uranus, but it has 18% more mass than Uranus, therefore it is denser .
• It has 17 times more mass than Earth and is 4 times larger so it has more mass to disperse in that space, making gravity similar to that of Earth.
• There is a fight between the English and the French over who discovered Neptune.
• It is the coldest planet in the solar system.
• Neptune’s largest moon is called Triton and it was trapped by the planet thanks to its enormous gravitational force.