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Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times the mass of Earth and slightly more massive, but denser and smaller, than fellow ice giant Uranus.
The "Great Dark Spot," a storm in Neptune's atmosphere, and the accompanying bright smudge of clouds are captured by the NASA Voyager 2 spacecraft less than five days before its closest approach ...
An ice giant is a giant planet composed mainly of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, such as oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur. There are two ice giants in the Solar System: Uranus and Neptune. In astrophysics and planetary science the term "ice" refers to volatile chemical compounds with freezing points above about 100 K, such as ...
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 Kuiper belt (/ ˈkaɪpər / KY-pər) [ 1 ] is a circumstellar disc in the outer Solar System, extending from the orbit of Neptune at 30 astronomical units (AU) to approximately 50 AU from the Sun. [ 2 ] It is similar to the asteroid belt, but is far larger—20 times as wide and 20–200 times as massive. [ 3 ][ 4 ] Like the asteroid belt ...
Exploration of Neptune. Photograph of Neptune in true colour by Voyager 2 in 1989. [a] Neptune's south pole is slightly above the bottom of the image. Neptune has been directly explored by one space probe, Voyager 2, in 1989. As of 2024, there are no confirmed future missions to visit the Neptunian system, although a tentative Chinese mission ...
A hot Neptune is a type of giant planet with a mass similar to that of Neptune or Uranus orbiting close to its star, normally within less than 1 AU. [1] The first hot Neptune to be discovered with certainty was Gliese 436 b (Awohali) in 2007, an exoplanet about 33 light years away. Recent observations have revealed a larger potential population ...
A total of five planets are going retrograde between May and September: Mercury, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. "Retrograde" is a term used to describe when a planet's orbit appears to slow ...