From the gasses that form it, to the rocks around it, and more!
Join me as I show you the history and facts about Neptune!
10.
The History Of Neptune Before we dive into the various facts, figures,
and numbers concerning the planet known as Neptune, let's first talk about its history
and its discovery.
Because it's a little more important than you might expect it to be.
Some of the earliest recorded observations ever made through a telescope, Galileo's drawings
on 28 December 1612 and 27 January 1613 contain plotted points that match up with what is
now known to be the position of Neptune.
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; hence, 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 motion of the planet
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 neighbour
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 the orbit of Uranus using the data he had.
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.
In 1845–46, Urbain Le Verrier, independently of Adams, developed his own calculations but
aroused no enthusiasm in his compatriots.
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.
On the evening of 23 September 1846, the day Galle received the letter, he discovered Neptune
just northeast of Phi Aquarii, 1° from where Le Verrier had predicted it to be, about 12°
from Adams' prediction, and on the border of Aquarius and Capricornus according to the
modern IAU constellation boundaries.
Challis later realised that he had observed the planet twice, on 4 and 12 August, but
did not recognise it as a planet because he lacked an up-to-date star map and was distracted
by his concurrent work on comet observations.
Think back on ALL of this, think about how many people had to look at the sky and try
to find this planet.
Funnily enough, Neptune is only planet to have been discovered by math (via the aforementioned
charts and predictions) BEFORE it was found by eye.
No matter what though, regardless of how it was found, it was found, and the 8th planet
of our solar system was eventually named Neptune.
This of course came after a big battle about what the name should be...but we won't dive
into it.
9.
Orbits and Rotations As you head to the outer reaches of the solar
system, Neptune is "officially" the last planet in our solar system (if you don't believe
that Pluto is a planet...), and as such, its time around the sun isn't so much about years
rather than lifetimes.
Because one orbit around the sun is about 165 years!
The oldest person to ever live hasn't made to 165 years (unless you count certain religious
tales and the mythological stories, just saying).
In 2011 Neptune completed its first 165-year orbit since its discovery in 1846.
For a day though, it's actually faster than its twin in Uranus, because it has a day of
about 16 hours.
So that right there is a bit of a conundrum if you will.
Because IF we were ever to make it to Neptune (and we'll get to that), the days on there
would be shorter, but not impossible to adjust to.
But to try and adjust to a year-cycle that is double the average lifespan of a human?
That would take some doing.
Though I'm sure some of you would try and make it work out.
8.
Seasons As for seasons on the planet Neptune, like
many of the other planets, it has Spring Summer Winter and Fall, it's just that they last
about 40 years each and can cause extreme temperature changes to the planet when they
occur.
The Hubble Space Telescope has actually captured Neptune's appearance as it changed seasons
once.
A rare sight indeed.
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7.
Storms and Spots In 1989, the Great Dark Spot, an anti-cyclonic
storm system spanning 13,000 × 6,600 km, was discovered by NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft.
The storm resembled the Great Red Spot of Jupiter and it was large enough to hold the
ENTIRE Earth within it.
Some five years later, on 2 November 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 Neptune's northern
hemisphere.
The Scooter is another storm, a white cloud group farther south than the Great Dark Spot.
This nickname first arose during the months leading up to the Voyager 2 encounter in 1989,
when they were observed moving at speeds faster than the Great Dark Spot (and images acquired
later would subsequently reveal the presence of clouds moving even faster than those that
had initially been detected by Voyager 2).
The Small Dark Spot is a southern cyclonic storm, the second-most-intense storm observed
during the 1989 encounter.
It was initially completely dark, but as Voyager 2 approached the planet, a bright core developed
and can be seen in most of the highest-resolution images.
Neptune's dark spots are thought to occur in the troposphere at lower altitudes than
the brighter cloud features, 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.
Often associated with dark spots are brighter, persistent methane clouds that form around
the tropopause layer.
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.
What this really boils down to is the fact that Neptune may look calm and peaceful at
times, but they have storms that rival what goes on with Jupiter.
Which makes you wonder, what is going on in that atmosphere?
6.
Atmosphere and Magnetic Field Neptune's atmosphere is made up mostly of
hydrogen and helium with just a little bit of methane.
Neptune's neighbor Uranus is a blue-green color due to such atmospheric methane, but
Neptune is a more vivid, brighter blue, so there must be an unknown component that causes
the more intense color.
Neptune is our solar system's windiest world.
Despite its great distance and low energy input from the Sun, Neptune's winds can be
three times stronger than Jupiter's and nine times stronger than Earth's.
These winds whip clouds of frozen methane across the planet at speeds of more than 1,200
miles per hour (2,000 kilometers per hour).
Even Earth's most powerful winds hit only about 250-300 miles per hour (400 kilometers
per hour).
All this adds up to the fact that living on this world in any capacity would be fraught
with problems.
We couldn't breathe the gasses, and the winds would more than likely knock out anything
we put in the upper atmospheres (which is a plan many have for Venus).
The main axis of Neptune's magnetic field is tipped over by about 47 degrees compared
with the planet's rotation axis.
Like Uranus, whose magnetic axis is tilted about 60 degrees from the axis of rotation,
Neptune's magnetosphere undergoes wild variations during each rotation because of this misalignment.
The magnetic field of Neptune is about 27 times more powerful than that of Earth.​
5.
Pop Culture Even though Neptune is the farthest planet
from our Sun, it's a frequent stop in pop culture and fiction.
The planet served as the backdrop for the 1997 science fiction horror film Event Horizon,
while in the cartoon series Futurama, the character Robot Santa Claus has his home base
on Neptune's north pole.
Dr. Who fans will remember that an episode entitled "Sleep No More" is set on a space
station orbiting Neptune.
And in the Star Trek: Enterprise pilot episode, "Broken Bow," viewers learn that at warp 4.5
speed, it is possible to fly to Neptune and back to Earth in six minutes.
Which is something that scientists and people at NASA would LOVE to do.
For you anime fans out there, in the series Sailor Moon, Neptune was one of the later
"Sailors" to arrive alongside Neptune, and in both the original and modern remake she
and Uranus were together.
But due to the times, the English dub of the original series had Neptune and Uranus be
"cousins".
Which totally wasn't awkward at all for those in the know...and those that didn't and found
out afterwards.
4.
Rings Neptune at least five main rings and four
prominient ring arcs that we know of so far.
Starting near the planet and moving outward, the main rings are named Galle, Leverrier,
Lassell, Arago and Adams.
The rings are thought to be relatively young and short-lived.
Neptune's ring system also has peculiar clumps of dust called arcs.
Four prominent arcs named Liberté (Liberty), Egalité (Equality), Fraternité (Fraternity)
and Courage are in the outermost ring, Adams.
The arcs are strange because the laws of motion would predict that they would spread out evenly
rather than stay clumped together.
Scientists now think the gravitational effects of Galatea, a moon just inward from the ring,
stabilizes these arcs.
3.
Moons Neptune has 14 known moons.
Neptune's largest moon Triton was discovered on October 10, 1846, by William Lassell, just
17 days after Johann Gottfried Galle discovered the planet.
Since Neptune was named for the Roman god of the sea, its moons are named for various
lesser sea gods and nymphs in Greek mythology.
Triton is the only large moon in the solar system that circles its planet in a direction
opposite to the planet's rotation (a retrograde orbit), which suggests that it may once have
been an independent object that Neptune captured.
Triton is extremely cold, with surface temperatures around minus 391 degrees Fahrenheit (minus
235 degrees Celsius).
And yet, despite this deep freeze at Triton, Voyager 2 discovered geysers spewing icy material
upward more than 5 miles (8 kilometers).
Triton's thin atmosphere, also discovered by Voyager, has been detected from Earth several
times since, and is growing warmer, but scientists do not yet know why.
2.
Internal Heating Neptune's more varied weather when compared
to Uranus is due in part to its higher internal heating.
The upper regions of Neptune's troposphere reach a low temperature of 51.8 K (−221.3
°C).
At a depth where the atmospheric pressure equals 1 bar (100 kPa), the temperature is
72.00 K (−201.15 °C).
Deeper inside the layers of gas, 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; whereas Neptune
radiates about 2.61 times as much energy as it receives from the Sun.
Neptune is the farthest planet from the Sun, and lies over 50% farther from the Sun than
Uranus, and receives only 40% its amount of sunlight, yet its internal energy is sufficient
to drive the fastest planetary winds seen in the Solar System.
Depending on the thermal properties of its interior, the heat left over from Neptune's
formation may be sufficient to explain its current heat flow, though it is more difficult
to simultaneously explain Uranus's lack of internal heat while preserving the apparent
similarity between the two planets.
1.
Could Humanity Ever Colonize Neptune?
Humanity really does love the idea of colonizing other worlds.
But there is a simple problem with doing that with all of them...some don't have a surface
to land on, like Neptune.
As noted earlier with Venus, the idea of putting colonies into the upper atmosphere is an idea,
but it wouldn't work because of the high winds that they'd have to endure.
So what is the solution?
Well to most, it would probably be to go onto one of its moons.
This is a similar approach to what people think we can do with Jupiter or Saturn's moons
via Titan and other candidates.
Having a base on a moon would be productive in various ways, including being waypoints
for travel out of the solar system, as well as warning system for something could come
our way in the future.
Another idea is that we could have a space station on the outer limits of Neptune.
One that wouldn't be affected by the atmosphere, and yet still in the gravity of the planet.
Such a construction would take a lot of time and effort to get into place, but it is an
option.
But given the distance to Neptune, there is no doubt that humanity will want to do closer
places like the moon and Mars or even Titan first.
Thanks for watching everyone!
What did you think of this look at Neptune and the various facts about it?
Did you learn something about Neptune that you didn't know before?
Do you think that humanity will ever reach Neptune in a way that'll help us a station
possibly in its orbit?
Let me know in the comments below, be sure to subscribe, and I'll see you next time on
the channel