Solar Information: PLANET NEPTUNE

80±3.2%	Hydrogen (H₂)
19±3.2%	Helium
1.5±0.5%	Methane
~0.019%	Hydrogen deuteride (HD)
~0.00015%	Ethane
Ices:
	Ammonia
	Water
	Ammonium hydrosulfide(NH₄SH)
	Methane (?)

Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. Named for the Roman god of the sea, it is the fourth-largest planet by diameter and the third-largest by mass. Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth and is slightly more massive than its near-twin Uranus, which is 15 Earth masses and not as dense.^[11] On average, Neptune orbits the Sun at a distance of 30.1 AU, approximately 30 times the Earth-Sun distance. Its astronomical symbol is , a stylized version of the god Neptune's trident.

Discovered on September 23, 1846,^[1] Neptune was the first planet found by mathematical prediction rather than by empirical observation. Unexpected changes in the orbit of Uranus led astronomers to deduce that its orbit was subject to gravitational perturbation by an unknown planet. Neptune was subsequently found within a degree of its predicted position, and its largest moon, Triton, was discovered shortly thereafter, though none of the planet's remaining 12 moons was located telescopically until the 20th century. Neptune has been visited by only one spacecraft, Voyager 2, which flew by the planet on August 25, 1989.

Neptune is similar in composition to Uranus, and both have compositions which differ from those of the larger gas giants Jupiter and Saturn. Neptune's atmosphere, while similar to Jupiter's and Saturn's in that it is composed primarily of hydrogen and helium, along with traces of hydrocarbons and possibly nitrogen, contains a higher proportion of "ices" such as water, ammonia and methane. Astronomers sometimes categorize Uranus and Neptune as "ice giants" in order to emphasize these distinctions.^[12] The interior of Neptune, like that of Uranus, is primarily composed of ices and rock.^[13] Traces of methane in the outermost regions in part account for the planet's blue appearance.^[14]

In contrast to the relatively featureless atmosphere of Uranus, Neptune's atmosphere is notable for its active and visible weather patterns. At the time of the 1989 Voyager 2 flyby, for example, the planet's southern hemisphere possessed a Great Dark Spot comparable to the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. These weather patterns are driven by the strongest sustained winds of any planet in the Solar System, with recorded wind speeds as high as 2100 km/h.^[15] Because of its great distance from the Sun, Neptune's outer atmosphere is one of the coldest places in the Solar System, with temperatures at its cloud tops approaching −218 °C (55 K). Temperatures at the planet's centre, however, are approximately 7,000 K (7,000 °C), comparable to those at the Sun's surface and similar to temperatures at the centres of most of the other planets of the Solar System. Neptune has a faint and fragmented ring system, which may have been detected during the 1960s but was only indisputably confirmed in 1989 by Voyager 2.^[16]

History

Discovery

In 1821, Alexis Bouvard published astronomical tables of the orbit of Neptune's neighbor Uranus.^[19] Subsequent observations revealed substantial deviations from the tables, leading Bouvard to hypothesize that an unknown body was perturbing the orbit through gravitational interaction. In 1843, John Couch Adams calculated the orbit of a hypothesized eighth planet that would account for Uranus's motion. He sent his calculations to Sir George Airy, the Astronomer Royal, who asked Adams for a clarification. Adams began to draft a reply but never sent it and did not aggressively pursue work on the Uranus problem.^[20]^[21]

Urbain Le Verrier

In 1845–46, Urbain Le Verrier, independently of Adams, rapidly developed his own calculations but also experienced difficulties in stimulating any enthusiasm in his compatriots. In June, however, upon seeing Le Verrier's first published estimate of the planet's longitude and its similarity to Adams's estimate, Airy persuaded Cambridge Observatory director James Challis to search for the planet. Challis vainly scoured the sky throughout August and September.^[22]^[23]

Meantime, Le Verrier by letter urged Berlin Observatory astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle to search with the observatory's refractor. Heinrich d'Arrest, a student at the observatory, suggested to Galle that they could compare a recently drawn chart of the sky in the region of Le Verrier's predicted location with the current sky to seek the displacement characteristic of a planet, as opposed to a fixed star. The very evening of the day of receipt of Le Verrier's letter on September 23, 1846, Neptune was discovered within 1° of where Le Verrier had predicted it to be, and about 12° from Adams' prediction. Challis later realized that he had observed the planet twice in August, failing to identify it owing to his casual approach to the work.^[22]^[24]

In the wake of the discovery, there was much nationalistic rivalry between the French and the British over who had priority and deserved credit for the discovery. Eventually an international consensus emerged that both Le Verrier and Adams jointly deserved credit. However, the issue is being re-evaluated by historians with the rediscovery in 1998 of the "Neptune papers" (historical documents from the Royal Observatory, Greenwich), which had apparently been stolen by astronomer Olin J. Eggen and hoarded for nearly three decades, not to be rediscovered (in his possession) until immediately after his death.^[25] After reviewing the documents, some historians suggest that Adams does not deserve equal credit with Le Verrier. Since 1966 Dennis Rawlins has questioned the credibility of Adams's claim to co-discovery. In a 1992 article in his journal Dio he deemed the British claim "theft".^[26] "Adams had done some calculations but he was rather unsure about quite where he was saying Neptune was," said Nicholas Kollerstrom of University College London in 2003.^[27]^[28]

Naming

Claiming the right to name his discovery, Le Verrier quickly proposed the name Neptune for this new planet, while falsely stating that this had been officially approved by the French Bureau des Longitudes.^[30] In October, he sought to name the planet Le Verrier, after himself, and he had loyal support in this from the observatory director, François Arago. However, this suggestion met with stiff resistance outside France.^[31] French almanacs quickly reintroduced the name Herschel for Uranus, after that planet's discoverer Sir William Herschel, and Leverrier for the new planet.^[32]

Struve came out in favour of the name Neptune on December 29, 1846, to the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences.^[33] Soon Neptune became the internationally accepted name. In Roman mythology, Neptune was the god of the sea, identified with the Greek Poseidon. The demand for a mythological name seemed to be in keeping with the nomenclature of the other planets, all of which, except for Earth, were named for Graeco-Roman deities.^[34]

Status

From its discovery until 1930, Neptune was the farthest known planet. Upon the discovery of Pluto in 1930, Neptune became the penultimate planet, save for a 20-year period between 1979 and 1999 when Pluto fell within its orbit.^[35] However, the discovery of the Kuiper belt in 1992 led many astronomers to debate whether Pluto should be considered a planet in its own right or part of the belt's larger structure.^[36]^[37] In 2006, the International Astronomical Union defined the word "planet" for the first time, reclassifying Pluto as a "dwarf planet" and making Neptune once again the last planet in the Solar System.^[38]

Composition and structure

A size comparison of Neptune and Earth

With a mass of 1.0243 × 10²⁶ kg,^[5] Neptune is an intermediate body between Earth and the larger gas giants: its mass is seventeen times that of the Earth but just 1/19th that of Jupiter.^[11] Neptune's equatorial radius of 24764 km^[7] is nearly four times that of the Earth. Neptune and Uranus are often considered a sub-class of gas giant termed "ice giants", due to their smaller size and higher concentrations of volatiles relative to Jupiter and Saturn.^[39] In the search for extrasolar planets Neptune has been used as a metonym: discovered bodies of similar mass are often referred to as "Neptunes",^[40] just as astronomers refer to various extra-solar bodies as "Jupiters".

Internal structure

Neptune's internal structure resembles that of Uranus. Its atmosphere forms about 5 to 10 percent of its mass and extends perhaps 10 to 20 percent of the way towards the core, where it reaches pressures of about 10 GPa. Increasing concentrations of methane, ammonia and water are found in the lower regions of the atmosphere.^[41]

The internal structure of Neptune:
1. Upper atmosphere, top clouds
2. Atmosphere consisting of hydrogen, helium and methane gas
3. Mantle consisting of water, ammonia and methane ices
4. Core consisting of rock and ice

Gradually this darker and hotter region condenses into a superheated liquid mantle, where temperatures reach 2,000 K to 5,000 K. The mantle is equivalent to 10 to 15 Earth masses and is rich in water, ammonia and methane.^[1] As is customary in planetary science, this mixture is referred to as icy even though it is a hot, highly dense fluid. This fluid, which has a high electrical conductivity, is sometimes called a water-ammonia ocean.^[42] At a depth of 7000 km, the conditions may be such that methane decomposes into diamond crystals that then precipitate toward the core.^[43]

The core of Neptune is composed of iron, nickel and silicates, with an interior model giving a mass about 1.2 times that of the Earth.^[44] The pressure at the centre is 7 Mbar (700 GPa), millions of times more than that on the surface of the Earth, and the temperature may be 5,400 K.^[41]^[45]

Atmosphere

At high altitudes, Neptune's atmosphere is 80% hydrogen and 19% helium.^[41] A trace amount of methane is also present. Prominent absorption bands of methane occur at wavelengths above 600 nm, in the red and infrared portion of the spectrum. As with Uranus, this absorption of red light by the atmospheric methane is part of what gives Neptune its blue hue,^[46] although Neptune's vivid azure differs from Uranus's milder aquamarine. Since Neptune's atmospheric methane content is similar to that of Uranus, some unknown atmospheric constituent is thought to contribute to Neptune's colour.^[14] Neptune is, however, somewhat denser and heavier than Uranus, and models suggest that its hydrogen-helium atmosphere would be thinner, allowing more of the methane from the mantle to leak to the surface, leading to a richer colour.^{[citation needed]}

Neptune's atmosphere is sub-divided into two main regions; the lower troposphere, where temperature decreases with altitude, and the stratosphere, where temperature increases with altitude. The boundary between the two, the tropopause, occurs at a pressure of 0.1 bars (10 kPa).^[12] The stratosphere then gives way to the thermosphere at a pressure lower than 10⁻⁵ to 10⁻⁴ microbars (1 to 10 Pa).^[12] The thermosphere gradually transitions to the exosphere.

Bands of high-altitude clouds cast shadows on Neptune's lower cloud deck

Models suggest that Neptune's troposphere is banded by clouds of varying compositions depending on altitude. The upper-level clouds occur at pressures below one bar, where the temperature is suitable for methane to condense. For pressures between one and five bars (100 and 500 kPa), clouds of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide are believed to form. Above a pressure of five bars, the clouds may consist of ammonia, ammonium sulfide, hydrogen sulfide and water. Deeper clouds of water ice should be found at pressures of about 50 bars (5.0 MPa), where the temperature reaches 0 °C. Underneath, clouds of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide may be found.^[47]

High-altitude clouds on Neptune have been observed casting shadows on the opaque cloud deck below. There are also high-altitude cloud bands that wrap around the planet at constant latitude. These circumferential bands have widths of 50-150 km and lie about 50-110 km above the cloud deck.^[48]

Neptune's spectra suggest that its lower stratosphere is hazy due to condensation of products of ultraviolet photolysis of methane, such as ethane and acetylene.^[12]^[41] The stratosphere is also home to trace amounts of carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide.^[12]^[49] The stratosphere of Neptune is warmer than that of Uranus due to the elevated concentration of hydrocarbons.^[12]

For reasons that remain obscure, the planet's thermosphere is at an anomalously high temperature of about 750 K.^[50]^[51] The planet is too far from the Sun for this heat to be generated by ultraviolet radiation. One candidate for a heating mechanism is atmospheric interaction with ions in the planet's magnetic field. Other candidates are gravity waves from the interior that dissipate in the atmosphere. The thermosphere contains traces of carbon dioxide and water, which may have been deposited from external sources such as meteorites and dust.^[47]^[49]

Magnetosphere

Neptune also resembles Uranus in its magnetosphere, with a magnetic field strongly tilted relative to its rotational axis at 47° and offset at least 0.55 radii, or about 13500 km from the planet's physical centre. Before Voyager 2's arrival at Neptune, it was hypothesised that Uranus's tilted magnetosphere was the result of its sideways rotation. However, in comparing the magnetic fields of the two planets, scientists now think the extreme orientation may be characteristic of flows in the planets' interiors. This field may be generated by convective fluid motions in a thin spherical shell of electrically conducting liquids (probably a combination of ammonia, methane and water)^[47] resulting in a dynamo action.^[52]

The dipole component of the magnetic field at the magnetic equator of Neptune is about 14 microteslas (0.14 G).^[53] The dipole magnetic moment of Neptune is about 2.2 × 10¹⁷ T·m³ (14 μT·R_N³, where R_N is the radius of Neptune). Neptune's magnetic field has a complex geometry that includes relatively large contributions from non-dipolar components, including a strong quadrupole moment that may exceed the dipole moment in strength. By contrast, Earth, Jupiter and Saturn have only relatively small quadrupole moments, and their fields are less tilted from the polar axis. The large quadrupole moment of Neptune may be the result of offset from the planet's center and geometrical constraints of the field's dynamo generator.^[54]^[55]

Neptune's bow shock, where the magnetosphere begins to slow the solar wind, occurs at a distance of 34.9 times the radius of the planet. The magnetopause, where the pressure of the magnetosphere counterbalances the solar wind, lies at a distance of 23–26.5 times the radius of Neptune. The tail of the magnetosphere extends out to at least 72 times the radius of Neptune, and very likely much farther.^[54]

Planetary rings

Main article: Rings of Neptune

Neptune's rings, taken by Voyager 2

Neptune has a planetary ring system, though one much less substantial than that of Saturn. The rings may consist of ice particles coated with silicates or carbon-based material, which most likely gives them a reddish hue.^[56] The three main rings are the narrow Adams Ring, 63000 km from the centre of Neptune, the Le Verrier Ring, at 53000 km, and the broader, fainter Galle Ring, at 42000 km. A faint outward extension to the Le Verrier Ring has been named Lassell; it is bounded at its outer edge by the Arago Ring at 57000 km.^[57]

The first of these planetary rings was discovered in 1968 by a team led by Edward Guinan,^[16]^[58] but it was later thought that this ring might be incomplete.^[59] Evidence that the rings might have gaps first arose during a stellar occultation in 1984 when the rings obscured a star on immersion but not on emersion.^[60] Images by Voyager 2 in 1989 settled the issue by showing several faint rings. These rings have a clumpy structure,^[61] the cause of which is not currently understood but which may be due to the gravitational interaction with small moons in orbit near them.^[62]

The outermost ring, Adams, contains five prominent arcs now named Courage, Liberté, Egalité 1, Egalité 2 and Fraternité (Courage, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity).^[63] The existence of arcs was difficult to explain because the laws of motion would predict that arcs would spread out into a uniform ring over very short timescales. Astronomers now believe that the arcs are corralled into their current form by the gravitational effects of Galatea, a moon just inward from the ring.^[64]^[65]

Earth-based observations announced in 2005 appeared to show that Neptune's rings are much more unstable than previously thought. Images taken from the W. M. Keck Observatory in 2002 and 2003 show considerable decay in the rings when compared to images by Voyager 2. In particular, it seems that the Liberté arc might disappear in as little as one century.^[66]

Climate

One difference between Neptune and Uranus is the typical level of meteorological activity. When the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by Uranus in 1986, that planet was visually quite bland. In contrast Neptune exhibited notable weather phenomena during the 1989 Voyager 2 fly-by.^[67]

The Great Dark Spot (top), Scooter (middle white cloud),^[68] and the Small Dark Spot (bottom)

Neptune's weather is characterized by extremely dynamic storm systems, with winds reaching speeds of almost 600 m/s—nearly attaining supersonic flow.^[69] More typically, by tracking the motion of persistent clouds, wind speeds have been shown to vary from 20 m/s in the easterly direction to 325 m/s westward.^[70] At the cloud tops, the prevailing winds range in speed from 400 m/s along the equator to 250 m/s at the poles.^[47] Most of the winds on Neptune move in a direction opposite the planet's rotation.^[71] The general pattern of winds showed prograde rotation at high latitudes vs. retrograde rotation at lower latitudes. The difference in flow direction is believed to be a "skin effect" and not due to any deeper atmospheric processes.^[12] At 70° S latitude, a high-speed jet travels at a speed of 300 m/s.^[12]

The abundance of methane, ethane and acetylene at Neptune's equator is 10–100 times greater than at the poles. This is interpreted as evidence for upwelling at the equator and subsidence near the poles.^[12]

In 2007 it was discovered that the upper troposphere of Neptune's south pole was about 10°C warmer than the rest of Neptune, which averages approximately −200 °C (70 K).^[72] The warmth differential is enough to let methane gas, which elsewhere lies frozen in Neptune's upper atmosphere, leak out through the south pole and into space. The relative "hot spot" is due to Neptune's axial tilt, which has exposed the south pole to the Sun for the last quarter of Neptune's year, or roughly 40 Earth years. As Neptune slowly moves towards the opposite side of the Sun, the south pole will be darkened and the north pole illuminated, causing the methane release to shift to the north pole.^[73]

Because of seasonal changes, the cloud bands in the southern hemisphere of Neptune have been observed to increase in size and albedo. This trend was first seen in 1980 and is expected to last until about 2020. The long orbital period of Neptune results in seasons lasting forty years.^[74]

Storms

The Great Dark Spot, as seen from Voyager 2

In 1989, the Great Dark Spot, an anti-cyclonic storm system spanning 13000×6600 km,^[67] was discovered by NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft. The storm resembled the Great Red Spot of Jupiter. Some five years later, however, on November 2, 1994, the Hubble Space Telescope did not see the Great Dark Spot on the planet. Instead, a new storm similar to the Great Dark Spot was found in the planet's northern hemisphere.^[75]

The Scooter is another storm, a white cloud group farther south than the Great Dark Spot. Its nickname is due to the fact that when first detected in the months before the 1989 Voyager 2 encounter it moved faster than the Great Dark Spot.^[71] Subsequent images revealed even faster clouds. The Small Dark Spot is a southern cyclonic storm, the second-most-intense storm observed during the 1989 encounter. It initially was completely dark, but as Voyager 2 approached the planet, a bright core developed and can be seen in most of the highest-resolution images.^[76]

Neptune's dark spots are thought to occur in the troposphere at lower altitudes than the brighter cloud features,^[77] so they appear as holes in the upper cloud decks. As they are stable features that can persist for several months, they are thought to be vortex structures.^[48] Often associated with dark spots are brighter, persistent methane clouds that form around the tropopause layer.^[78] The persistence of companion clouds shows that some former dark spots may continue to exist as cyclones even though they are no longer visible as a dark feature. Dark spots may dissipate when they migrate too close to the equator or possibly through some other unknown mechanism.^[79]

Internal heat

Neptune's more varied weather when compared to Uranus is believed to be due in part to its higher internal heat.^[80] Although Neptune lies half again as far from the Sun as Uranus, and receives only 40% its amount of sunlight,^[12] the two planets' surface temperatures are roughly equal.^[80] The upper regions of Neptune's troposphere reach a low temperature of −221.4 °C (51.7 K). At a depth where the atmospheric pressure equals 1 bar (100 kPa), the temperature is −201.15 °C (72.0 K).^[81] Deeper inside the layers of gas, however, the temperature rises steadily. As with Uranus, the source of this heating is unknown, but the discrepancy is larger: Uranus only radiates 1.1 times as much energy as it receives from the Sun;^[82] while Neptune radiates about 2.61 times as much energy as it receives from the Sun.^[83] Neptune is the farthest planet from the Sun, yet its internal energy is sufficient to drive the fastest planetary winds seen in the Solar System. Several possible explanations have been suggested, including radiogenic heating from the planet's core,^[84] conversion of methane under high pressure into hydrogen, diamond and longer hydrocarbons (the hydrogen and diamond would then rise and sink, respectively, releasing gravitational potential energy),^[84]^[85] and convection in the lower atmosphere that causes gravity waves to break above the tropopause.^[86]^[87]

Orbit and rotation

The average distance between Neptune and the Sun is 4.55 billion km (about 30.1 AU), and it completes an orbit every 164.79 years. On July 12, 2011, Neptune will have completed the first full orbit since its discovery in 1846,^[4]^[88] although it will not appear at its exact discovery position in our sky because the Earth will be in a different location in its 365.25-day orbit.

The elliptical orbit of Neptune is inclined 1.77° compared to the Earth. Because of an eccentricity of 0.011, the distance between Neptune and the Sun varies by 101 million km between perihelion and aphelion, the nearest and most distant points of the planet from the Sun along the orbital path, respectively.^[2]

The axial tilt of Neptune is 28.32°,^[89] which is similar to the tilts of Earth (23°) and Mars (25°). As a result, this planet experiences similar seasonal changes. However, the long orbital period of Neptune means that the seasons last for forty Earth years.^[74] Its sidereal rotation period (day) is roughly 16.11 hours.^[4] Since its axial tilt is comparable to the Earth's, the variation in the length of its day over the course of its long year is not any more extreme.

Because Neptune is not a solid body, its atmosphere undergoes differential rotation. The wide equatorial zone rotates with a period of about 18 hours, which is slower than the 16.1-hour rotation of the planet's magnetic field. By contrast, the reverse is true for the polar regions where the rotation period is 12 hours. This differential rotation is the most pronounced of any planet in the Solar System,^[90] and it results in strong latitudinal wind shear.^[48]

Orbital resonances

Main article: Kuiper belt

A diagram showing the orbital resonances in the Kuiper belt caused by Neptune: the highlighted regions are the 2:3 resonance (Plutinos), the "classical belt", with orbits unaffected by Neptune, and the 1:2 resonance (twotinos).

Neptune's orbit has a profound impact on the region directly beyond it, known as the Kuiper belt. The Kuiper belt is a ring of small icy worlds, similar to the asteroid belt but far larger, extending from Neptune's orbit at 30 AU out to about 55 AU from the Sun.^[91] Much in the same way that Jupiter's gravity dominates the asteroid belt, shaping its structure, so Neptune's gravity dominates the Kuiper belt. Over the age of the Solar System, certain regions of the Kuiper belt become destabilized by Neptune's gravity, creating gaps in the Kuiper belt's structure. The region between 40 and 42 AU is an example.^[92]

There do, however, exist orbits within these empty regions where objects can survive for the age of the Solar System. These resonances occur when Neptune's orbital period is a precise fraction of that of the object, such as 1:2, or 3:4. If, say, an object orbits the Sun once for every two Neptune orbits, it will only complete half an orbit by the time Neptune returns to its original position. The most heavily populated resonance in the Kuiper belt, with over 200 known objects,^[93] is the 2:3 resonance. Objects in this resonance complete 2 orbits for every 3 of Neptune, and are known as plutinos because the largest of the Kuiper belt objects, Pluto, is among them.^[94] Although Pluto crosses Neptune's orbit regularly, the 2:3 resonance ensures they can never collide.^[95] The 3:4, 3:5, 4:7 and 2:5 resonances are less populated.^[96]

Neptune possesses a number of trojan objects, which occupy its L₄ and L₅ points—gravitationally stable regions leading and trailing it in its orbit. Neptune trojans can be viewed as being in a 1:1 resonance with Neptune. Neptune trojans are remarkably stable in their orbits and are unlikely to have been captured by Neptune, but rather to have formed alongside it.^[97]

Formation and migration

Main articles: Formation and evolution of the Solar System and Nice model

A simulation showing Outer Planets and Kuiper Belt: a) Before Jupiter/Saturn 2:1 resonance b) Scattering of Kuiper Belt objects into the solar system after the orbital shift of Neptune c) After ejection of Kuiper Belt bodies by Jupiter

The formation of the ice giants, Neptune and Uranus, has proven difficult to model precisely. Current models suggest that the matter density in the outer regions of the Solar System was too low to account for the formation of such large bodies from the traditionally accepted method of core accretion, and various hypotheses have been advanced to explain their creation. One is that the ice giants were not created by core accretion but from instabilities within the original protoplanetary disc, and later had their atmospheres blasted away by radiation from a nearby massive OB star.^[98]

An alternative concept is that they formed closer to the Sun, where the matter density was higher, and then subsequently migrated to their current orbits after the removal of the gaseous protoplanetary disc.^[99] This hypothesis of migration after formation is currently favoured, due to its ability to better explain the occupancy of the populations of small objects observed in the trans-Neptunian region.^[100] The current most widely accepted^[101]^[102]^[103] explanation of the details of this hypothesis is known as the Nice model, which explores the effect of a migrating Neptune and the other giant planets on the structure of the Kuiper belt.

Moons

Main article: Moons of Neptune

For a timeline of discovery dates, see Timeline of discovery of Solar System planets and their moons

Neptune (top) and Triton (bottom)

Neptune has 13 known moons.^[5] The largest by far, comprising more than 99.5 percent of the mass in orbit around Neptune^[104] and the only one massive enough to be spheroidal, is Triton, discovered by William Lassell just 17 days after the discovery of Neptune itself. Unlike all other large planetary moons in the Solar System, Triton has a retrograde orbit, indicating that it was captured rather than forming in place; it probably was once a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt.^[105] It is close enough to Neptune to be locked into a synchronous rotation, and it is slowly spiraling inward because of tidal acceleration and eventually will be torn apart, in about 3.6 billion years, when it reaches the Roche limit.^[106] In 1989, Triton was the coldest object that had yet been measured in the solar system,^[107] with estimated temperatures of −235 °C (38 K).^[108]

Neptune's second known satellite (by order of discovery), the irregular moon Nereid, has one of the most eccentric orbits of any satellite in the solar system. The eccentricity of 0.7512 gives it an apoapsis that is seven times its periapsis distance from Neptune.^[109]

Neptune's moon Proteus

From July to September 1989, Voyager 2 discovered six new Neptunian moons.^[54] Of these, the irregularly shaped Proteus is notable for being as large as a body of its density can be without being pulled into a spherical shape by its own gravity.^[110] Although the second-most-massive Neptunian moon, it is only one-quarter of one percent the mass of Triton. Neptune's innermost four moons—Naiad, Thalassa, Despina and Galatea—orbit close enough to be within Neptune's rings. The next-farthest out, Larissa was originally discovered in 1981 when it had occulted a star. This occultation had been attributed to ring arcs, but when Voyager 2 observed Neptune in 1989, it was found to have been caused by the moon. Five new irregular moons discovered between 2002 and 2003 were announced in 2004.^[111]^[112] As Neptune was the Roman god of the sea, the planet's moons have been named after lesser sea gods.^[34]

Observation

Neptune is never visible to the naked eye, having a brightness between magnitudes +7.7 and +8.0,^[5]^[9] which can be outshone by Jupiter's Galilean moons, the dwarf planet Ceres and the asteroids 4 Vesta, 2 Pallas, 7 Iris, 3 Juno and 6 Hebe.^[113] A telescope or strong binoculars will resolve Neptune as a small blue disk, similar in appearance to Uranus.^[114]

Because of the distance of Neptune from the Earth, the angular diameter of the planet only ranges from 2.2–2.4 arcseconds;^[5]^[9] the smallest of the Solar System planets. Its small apparent size has made it challenging to study visually; most telescopic data was fairly limited until the advent of Hubble Space Telescope and large ground-based telescopes with adaptive optics.^[115]^[116]

From the Earth, Neptune goes through apparent retrograde motion every 367 days, resulting in a looping motion against the background stars during each opposition. These loops will carry it close to the 1846 discovery coordinates in April and July 2010 and in October and November 2011.^[88]

Observation of Neptune in the radio frequency band shows that the planet is a source of both continuous emission and irregular bursts. Both sources are believed to originate from the planet's rotating magnetic field.^[47] In the infrared part of the spectrum, Neptune's storms appear bright against the cooler background, allowing the size and shape of these features to be readily tracked.^[117]

Exploration

Main article: Exploration of Neptune

Voyager 2's closest approach to Neptune occurred on August 25, 1989. Since this was the last major planet the spacecraft could visit, it was decided to make a close flyby of the moon Triton, regardless of the consequences to the trajectory, similarly to what was done for Voyager 1's encounter with Saturn and its moon Titan. The images relayed back to Earth from Voyager 2 became the basis of a 1989 PBS all-night program, Neptune All Night.^[118]

A Voyager 2 image of Triton

During the encounter, signals from the spacecraft required 246 minutes to reach the Earth. Hence, for the most part, the Voyager 2 mission relied on pre-loaded commands for the Neptune encounter. The spacecraft performed a near-encounter with the moon Nereid before it came within 4400 km of Neptune's atmosphere on August 25, then passed close to the planet's largest moon Triton later the same day.^[119]

The spacecraft verified the existence of a magnetic field surrounding the planet and discovered that the field was offset from the centre and tilted in a manner similar to the field around Uranus. The question of the planet's rotation period was settled using measurements of radio emissions. Voyager 2 also showed that Neptune had a surprisingly active weather system. Six new moons were discovered, and the planet was shown to have more than one ring.^[54]^[119]

Voyager 2 passes Neptune in 1989.

In 2003, there was a proposal to NASA's "Vision Missions Studies" to implement a "Neptune Orbiter with Probes" mission that does Cassini-level science without fission-based electric power or propulsion. The work is being done in conjunction with JPL and the California Institute of Technology.^[120]

Solar Information

PLANET NEPTUNE Thursday, June 18, 2009