Neptune
Fourth largest planet in the Solar System.
(nearly four times the size of Earth.)
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Neptune
- eighth planet out from the Sun – so far away from the Sun that its orbit lasts 165Â years.
- still not yet completed one orbits since it was discovered in 1846.
- similar to Uranus – Neptune is shrouded in blue methane clouds at -210ºC in a deep atmosphere made of hydrogen and helium gas.
- nothing similar to Uranus, which is perfectly blue, Neptune has some white clouds, created by heat inside the planet.
- Neptune suffers the most violent weather in the Solar System – blowing at up to 1,250 mph.
- The Great Dark Spot was a giant storm seen by Voyager 2 in 1989, but now it has disappeared since.
- Neptune has some moons;Â Triton, Nereid, Proteus, Thalassa, Psamathe, Laomedeia,Larissa, Despina, Galatea, Halimede, Naiad, Sao, Neso.
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Facts
- Neptune spins on its axis very rapidly;
Its equatorial clouds take 18 hours to make one rotation. This is because Neptune is not solid body. - Neptune has 14 moons;
The most interesting moon is Triton, a frozen world that is spewing nitrogen ice and dust particles out from below its surface. It was likely captured by the gravitational pull of Neptune – probably the coldest world in the solar system. - Triton;
Neptune’s largest moon and is the only large moon in the solar system to orbit in the opposite direction to its planet’s rotation.
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