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Planetary Walkway: Neptune
| Previous: Uranus | Walkway Overview | Next: Pluto |
This Planet is dedicated to Beth, Jake, Natalie and Uncle Kenny.
"No matter where you go, there you are."
Donal Hummer, Jr.
Harley-Davidson Financial Services, Inc.
Named after the Roman god of the sea, Neptune is known to have eight satellites, with Triton as the largest. It is very dynamic with the strongest winds of any planet in the solar system.
Neptune is similar in composition and internal structure to its twin like planet Uranus. Neptune has a greater abundance of methane than Uranus and this is the contributing factor as to why Neptune appears a deeper shade of blue. Neptune is about 30 times further from the Sun than Earth (30.33 A. U.) so it takes 164 years to orbit the Sun and it rotates on its axis every 19 hours (0.79 Days).
Neptune was named after the Roman mythological god of the sea. A unique phenomenon in the atmosphere of Neptune is the creation of white plum-like clouds called "The Scooter" that move around the planet about every 16 hours. Neptune has a relatively faint ring system made up of chunks of ice the size of trucks and cars. Neptune has 13 known icy moons. Astronomers theorize that some of the moons might become additions to Neptune's ring system in approximately 100 million years.
Quick Facts
- Mean Distance from Sun: 4,501.2 million kilometers
- Orbital Period: 164.79 years
- Rotational Period: 16.11 hours
| Neptune Images | ||
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| Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 Observations of Neptune. Image courtesy NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA-JPL). | ||