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Neptune brightened about 10% between 1980 and 2000 mostly due to the changing of the seasons. [178] Neptune may continue to brighten as it approaches perihelion in 2042. The apparent magnitude currently ranges from 7.67 to 7.89 with a mean of 7.78 and a standard deviation of 0.06. [18] Prior to 1980, the planet was as faint as magnitude 8.0. [18]
Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth and is slightly more massive than its near-twin Uranus, which is 15 times the mass of Earth and slightly larger than Neptune. [a] Neptune orbits the Sun once every 164.8 years at an average distance of 30.1 astronomical units (4.50 × 10 9 km).
An annotated picture of some of Neptune's many moons as captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. The bright blue diffraction star is Triton, Neptune's largest moon; while Hippocamp, its smallest regular moon, is too small to be seen. The planet Neptune has 16 known moons, which are named for minor water deities and a water creature in Greek ...
Generally, Neptune is depicted as a rich, deep blue. Uranus is usually seen as a pale green or cyan. In fact, however, they are much more similar than we thought. Both planets are a particular ...
The Great Dark Spot (also known as GDS-89, for Great Dark Spot, 1989) was one of a series of dark spots on Neptune similar in appearance to Jupiter's Great Red Spot. In 1989, GDS-89 was the first Great Dark Spot on Neptune to be observed by NASA's Voyager 2 space probe. Like Jupiter's spot, the Great Dark Spots are anticyclonic storms.
The ice giants Uranus and Neptune live up to their name. Although humans have only ever sent one spacecraft (Voyager 2) toward these far-flung worlds, scientists have a pretty good idea that these ...
Neptune was discovered in 1846 and is located 30 times farther from the sun than Earth. The planet's 164-year orbit takes it through some of the darkest and most remote regions of the outer solar ...
Neptune's rings had been observed from Earth many years prior to Voyager 2 's visit, but the close inspection revealed that the ring systems were full circle and intact, and a total of four rings were counted. [4] Voyager 2 discovered six new small moons orbiting Neptune's equatorial plane, dubbed Naiad, Thalassa, Despina, Galatea, Larissa and ...