Neptune :: essays research papers

NeptuneNeptune is the outermost planet of the gas giants. It has an equatorialdiameter of 49,500 kilometers (30,760 miles) and is the one-eighth planet from thesun. If Neptune were hol kickoff, it could contain nearly 60 Earths. Neptuneorbits the Sun every one hundred sixty-five years. It has eight moons, six of which were found byVoyager 2. A day on Neptune is 16 hours and 6.7 minutes. Neptune wasdiscovered on September 23, 1846 by Johann Gottfried Galle, of the BerlinObservatory. Neptune got its named from the Roman deity of the Sea. Much of whatis know today about Neptune was discovered in 1989 by the U.S Voyager 2spacecraft during its 1989 flyby f Neptune. Neptune as compared to Earth is 3.9times the diameter, 30 times the duration from the sun, 17 times as massive, and0.3 times the density. Neptune travels around the Sun in an elliptical orbit atan average distance of 4.504 billion km (2.799 billion miles). Neptune consistslargely of hydrogen and helium, and it has no presu mable solid surface. The firsttwo thirds of Neptune is composed of a mixture of melt rock, water, liquidammonia and methane. The outer third is a mixture of het up(p) gases comprised ofhydrogen, helium, water and methane. The atmospherical composition is 85%Hydrogen, 13% Helium, and 2% methane. The planets atmosphere, particularlythe outer layers, contains substantial amounts of methane gas. Absorption ofred light by the atmospheric methane is responsible for Neptunes deep bluecolor. Neptune is a dynamic planet with some(prenominal) large, dark spots reminiscent ofJupiters hurricane-like storms. The largest spot, known as the Great gloomful secern,is about the size of the earth and is similar to the Great Red Spot on Jupiter.Neptune receives less than half as much sunlight as Uranus, but heat escapingfrom its interior makes Neptune slightly warmer than Uranus. The heat turnmay also be responsible for Neptunes stormier atmosphere, which exhibits thefastest winds seen on whats oever planet in the solar system. Most of the winds thereblow westward, turnaround to the rotation of the planet. Near the Great Dark Spot,winds blow up to 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) an hour. Voyager 2 found thatthe winds averaged about 300 meters per second (700 miles/hour) in the planetsatmosphere.Long happy clouds, similar to cirrus clouds on Earth, were seen high inNeptunes atmosphere. At low northern latitudes, Voyager captured images ofcloud streaks casting their shadows on cloud decks below.Feathery albumin clouds fill the boundary between the dark and light blue regionson the Great Dark Spot.