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As with Uranus, this absorption of red light by atmospheric methane is part of what gives Neptune its faint blue hue, [85] which is more pronounced for Neptune's due to concentrated haze in Uranus's atmosphere. [86] [87] Neptune's atmosphere is subdivided into two main regions: the lower troposphere, where temperature decreases with altitude ...
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).
Neptune, for example, has an atmosphere made of hydrogen and helium (with just a tinge of methane), and it doesn’t really have a surface—or, at least, not what we think of as a surface.
The term gas giant was coined in 1952 by the science fiction writer James Blish [6] and was originally used to refer to all giant planets.It is, arguably, something of a misnomer because throughout most of the volume of all giant planets, the pressure is so high that matter is not in gaseous form. [7]
According to the IAU's explicit count, there are eight planets in the Solar System; four terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) and four giant planets, which can be divided further into two gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn) and two ice giants (Uranus and Neptune). When excluding the Sun, the four giant planets account for more than ...
Ice giants have distinctly different interior compositions from gas giants. The Solar System's ice giants, Uranus and Neptune, have a hydrogen-rich atmosphere that extends from the cloud tops down to about 80% (Uranus) or 85% (Neptune) of their radius. Below this, they are predominantly "icy", i.e. consisting mostly of water, methane, and ammonia.
Precipitation in the form of liquid (rain) or solid (snow) varies in composition depending on atmospheric temperature, pressure, composition, and altitude. Hot atmospheres could have iron rain, [ 107 ] molten-glass rain, [ 108 ] and rain made from rocky minerals such as enstatite, corundum , spinel , and wollastonite . [ 109 ]
3 Structure and composition of the Solar System. ... Physical characteristics of Neptune Structure of Neptune; Atmosphere of Neptune; Great Dark Spot;