LIMAPAGI – Neptune is a planet farthest in the solar system. Neptune is the only planet in the solar system that cannot be seen with the naked eye.
Neptune is a dark planet, cold and buffeted by supersonic winds. The ice giant Neptune is the eighth and farthest planet from our solar system. The planet is about four times wider than Earth.
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The only spacecraft to visit Neptune up close is NASA’s Voyager 2. It flew past in 1989 on its way out of the solar system.
Neptune completed its first orbit in 2011 in 165 years since its discovery in 1846. The planet takes about 16 hours to rotate once (one Neptune day), and about 165 Earth years to orbit the Sun (one Neptune year).
Neptune is an ice giant, most of its mass is a hot, dense liquid of “ice” , water methane and ammonia above a small rocky core.
Neptune’s atmosphere consists mostly of molecular hydrogen, helium atoms and methane. Methane gives Neptune the same blue color as Uranus.
Also Read: Get to know Mercury, the Smallest Planet in the Solar System
Neptune has six rings, but is very difficult to see and has 14 moons.
