Neptune is an ice giant, Dark, cold, and whipped by supersonic winds. It is the eighth and most distant planet in our solar system. Neptune is the only planet in our solar system not visible to the naked eye and the first predicted by mathematics before its discovery. NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft is the only one that has visited Neptune up close. To learn more, read the full article.
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Ice giant Planet Neptune
Neptune is the eighth largest planet in our solar system. It is the fourth-largest planet in diameter and the third-largest planet of all the planets in the solar system. Neptune is 17 times the mass of the Earth, slightly higher than its nearest planet Uranus. However, Neptune is denser and more petite than Uranus, as its greater mass causes more gravitational compression of its atmosphere.
This image of the planet Neptune was obtained while testing the Narrow-Field adaptive optics mode of the MUSE/GALACSI instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. The corrected image is sharper than a similar image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
Neptune orbits the Sun once every 164.8 years at an average distance of 30.1 AU (4.5 billion km). It is named after the Roman god of the sea and has the celestial symbol ♆, a stylish version of the trident of the Roman god Neptune.
Neptune is not visible to the Earth and is the only planet in the solar system found by mathematical prediction rather than empirical observation. Uranus’ unexpected change in its orbit prompted Alexis Bouvard to that its orbit was subject to gravitational disturbances by an unknown planet.
Neptune was later spotted with a telescope on September 23, 1846. Within a fraction of the position predicted by Johann Gale to Urbain le Verrier. It soon discovered the largest moon, Triton.
However, none of the remaining 13 moons of the planet were seen with binoculars until the 20th century. The planet’s distance from Earth gives it a tiny size, making it challenging to study with Earth-based telescopes. Nevertheless, Neptune was visited by Voyager 2 when he flew near the planet on August 25, 1989. The advent of the Hubble Space Telescope and large ground-based telescopes with adaptive optics has recently allowed for additional detailed observations from afar.
Credit: Hubble Space Telescope – frame from video on Hubblesite: STScI-2005-22
Like Jupiter and Saturn, Neptune’s atmosphere is composed primarily of hydrogen and helium, as well as traces of hydrocarbons and possibly nitrogen. However, it has more “ions,” such as water, ammonia, and methane. However, similar to Uranus, its interior is mainly composed of ions and rock. Uranus and Neptune are generally considered “ice giants” to emphasize this difference. Traces of methane in the outer regions for the appearance of the planet’s blue color.
Unlike Uranus’s misty, relatively featureless environment, Neptune’s (Neptune) environments have active and visible weather patterns. For example, at the time of the Vyzer 2 flyby in 1989, the planet had a Great Dark Spot compared to the Great Red Spot on Jupiter in the southern hemisphere. These weather patterns are driven by the strongest sustained winds of any planet in the solar system, with wind speeds exceeding 2,100 km / h (580 m / s, 1,300 mph). Due to its great distance from the Sun, Neptune’s outer atmosphere is one of the coldest places in the Solar System, with temperatures reaching 55 K (−218 ° C; −361 ° F) topped. The temperature at the center of the planet is about 5,400 K (5,100 ° C; 9,300 ° F). In addition, Neptune has a faint and fragmented ring system (labeled “arcs”), which was discovered in 1984, then later confirmed by Voyager 2.
Observations of Planet Neptune
On December 28, 1612, and January 27, 1613, the earliest recorded observations were made through a telescope by Galileo. Galileo’s drawings contain plotted points that match up with what is now known as Neptune’s position. On both occasions, Galileo seems to have mistaken Neptune for a fixed star when it appeared close—in conjunction—to Jupiter in the night sky; however, he is not credited with Neptune’s discovery. At his first observation in December 1612, Neptune was almost stationary in the sky because it had just turned retrograde that day. This apparent backward motion is created when Earth’s orbit takes it past an outer planet. Because Neptune was only beginning its yearly retrograde cycle, the Earth’s activity was far too slight to be detected with Galileo’s small telescope. In 2009, a study suggested that Galileo was at least aware that the “star” he had observed had moved relative to the fixed stars.
In 1821, Alexis Bouvard published astronomical tables of the orbit of Neptune’s neighbor Uranus. 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 began work on Uranus’s orbit using his data. He requested extra data from Sir George Airy, the Astronomer Royal, who supplied it in February 1844. Adams continued to work in 1845–46 and produced several different estimates of a new planet.
Discovery Of Planet Neptune
Johann Galle and Le Vernier discovered Neptune in 1846, and in fact, its existence was predicted by John Couch Adams much earlier. However, it is the general belief that these distant planets were discoveries made for the first time in the history of humanity thanks to the invention of the telescope.
However, According to the epic Mahabharata (3100 BCE), Ancient Indian astronomers, planets were not visible to the naked eye were known to and that the worlds mentioned as Sumeta, Syamet, and Teekshana could be a reference to the three distant planets Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.
Credit: Ramanarayanadatta Sastri Publisher: Gorakhpur Geeta Press
Mahabharata author Vyasa has described the planet Sweta in the Citta Nakshatra (constellation) as being Greenish White, which has now been discovered to be the color of Uranus; the Bluish White of the planet Syamat is found to be the color of Neptune. Indian Scholars believe that the Earth that Vyasa has referred to as Teekshana’ troubling’ the Krittika constellation as Pluto was discovered in 1930.
“शुक्रहः प्रोस्थापदे पूर्वे समारुह्य विरोचते उत्तरे तु परिक्रम्य सहितः षमुदिक्ष्यते [१५-भीष्। ३]
स्यमोग्रहः प्रज्वलितः सधूम इव पावकः आऐन्द्रम् तेजस्वी णक्ष-तरं ज्येस्थां आक्रम्य तिष्ठति [ १६-भीष्। ३]”
“Shukrahah Prosthapade Poorve Samaruhya Virochate Uttare tu Parikramya Sahitah Samudikshyate….[15-Bheeshma.3]
Syamograhah Prajwalitah Sadhooma iva Pavakah Aaindram Tejaswi Naksha- tram Jyesthaam Aakramya Tishthati…[16-Bheeshma.3]“
Sage Vyasa mentions that a bluish-white (Syama) planet was in Jyeshtha and was smoky (Sadhoom). Neelkantha calls it “Parigha” (circumference) in his commentary on Mahabharat, meaning that its orbit was almost the circumference of our solar system. There is mention of mirrors and microscopic vision in Mahabharata (Shanti A. 15,308) as “Durbini” or “Durbin.” In ancient literature, Durbini (a device used to see objects at a far-off distance, similar to binoculars) was mentioned. So, it means that lenses and telescopes were present at the time, and they were used.
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In 1989, NASA’s Voyager 2 became the first and only spacecraft to study Neptune up close.
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