The Smaller Ice Giant

That is, the eighth planet; beautiful Neptune. In grade six I did a project on this blue gas giant and so I've decided to re-visit it and write a blog for my astronomy class.

This blue beaut is named after the Roman god of the sea. The trident above is that of Poseidon's, which is the planet's symbol. I had no idea planets had symbols, go figure.

Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth but only 1/18th of Jupiter's mas. It's near-twin, Uranus, being 14. Neptune's density is greater because of the fact that it's volume is less than the other blue gas giant. It's the furthest planet from the sun in our solar system (*cough* stupid definition of a planet *cough*), the fourth largest in diameter, and third largest in mass.

The methane in it's mostly hydrogen and helium atmosphere is what gives it the beautiful blue colour. Its winds gail at up to 2100 km/h, making it the planet with the strongest winds in the solar system, and are generally located in the massive storm in its southern hemisphere; the Great Dark Spot. The temperature at the top of its clouds has been measured at -218 degrees C, one of the coldest in the solar system but that only makes sense because it's the furthest from the sun (*cough* besides poor Pluto *cough*). The core of the planet is, of course, a great deal hotter, at about 7000 degrees C.

It was discovered on September 23, 1846 by three astronomers; Urbain Le Verrier, John Couch Adams, and Johann Galle (but apparently Galileo viewed it in 1612 but he mistook it as a fixed star). Voyager 2 was the only spacecraft to visit it, and flew past the last gas giant on August 25, 1989.

Thirteen satellites circle Neptune, Triton being the largest of them. It's the only one of Neptune's moons large enough to be spherical and was discovered 17 days after the planet itself. There is thought that Triton was once a Kuiper Belt object before it was captured by Neptune's gravitational field. The cool part about the names of Neptune's moons is that since the planet itself is named after the great god of the sea, they are all named after lesser sea gods. I enjoyed that creativity of the astronomers who found them. There was definitely wine involved with the naming of the constellations but not so much with the naming of the planets and their moons.

Though it may not be visible in very many of the pictures (and not in the ones I have placed above), our lovely Neptune has rings! They are (obviously) much less substantial than those of Saturn, but they are azure in colour and are slightly "clumpy". This could be the result of the slight gravitational pulls from the orbiting moons but it's not certain.

There's definitely lots more to be discussed about the pretty blue gas giant (that's clouds aren't boring to look at) but I'll end my blurb for now. Wikipedia is where I got this information and there's plenty left if you're interested to take a look! Good old Neptune, the most respected and feared of gods next to Zeus, and the most beautiful planet next to Earth. Well, someone has to come in second place.