Neptunes closest to which planet

The seventh planet from the sun, Uranus is an oddball. It has clouds made of hydrogen sulfide, the same chemical that makes rotten eggs smell so foul. It rotates from east to west like Venus. But unlike Venus or any other planet, its equator is nearly at right angles to its orbit — it basically orbits on its side. Astronomers believe an object twice the size of Earth collided with Uranus roughly 4 billion years ago, causing Uranus to tilt.

That tilt causes extreme seasons that last plus years, and the sun beats down on one pole or the other for 84 Earth-years at a time. The collision is also thought to have knocked rock and ice into Uranus' orbit. These later became some of the planet's 27 moons. Methane in the atmosphere gives Uranus its blue-green tint. It also has 13 sets of faint rings. The eighth planet from the sun, Neptune is about the size of Uranus and is known for supersonic strong winds.

Neptune is far out and cold. The planet is more than 30 times as far from the sun as Earth. Neptune was the first planet predicted to exist by using math, before it was visually detected. Irregularities in the orbit of Uranus led French astronomer Alexis Bouvard to suggest some other planet might be exerting a gravitational tug. German astronomer Johann Galle used calculations to help find Neptune in a telescope.

Neptune is about 17 times as massive as Earth and has a rocky core. Once the ninth planet from the sun, Pluto is unlike other planets in many respects. It is smaller than Earth's moon; its orbit is highly elliptical, falling inside Neptune's orbit at some points and far beyond it at others; and Pluto's orbit doesn't fall on the same plane as all the other planets — instead, it orbits From until early , Pluto had actually been the eighth planet from the sun.

Then, on Feb. It's a cold, rocky world with a tenuous atmosphere. Scientists thought it might be nothing more than a hunk of rock on the outskirts of the solar system. Pluto is a very active ice world that's covered in glaciers, mountains of ice water, icy dunes and possibly even cryovolcanoes that erupt icy lava made of water, methane or ammonia. In , researchers proposed the possible existence of a ninth planet, for now dubbed " Planet Nine " or Planet X.

The planet is estimated to be about 10 times the mass of Earth and to orbit the sun between and 1, times farther than the orbit of the Earth. Scientists have not actually seen Planet Nine. They inferred its existence by its gravitational effects on other objects in the Kuiper Belt, a region at the fringe of the solar system that is home to icy rocks left over from the birth of the solar system. Also called trans-Neptunian objects, these Kuiper Belt objects have highly elliptical or oval orbits that align in the same direction.

The research is based on mathematical models and computer simulations using observations of six other smaller Kuiper Belt Objects with orbits that aligned in a similar matter. A recent hypothesis proposed September on the pre-print server arXiv suggests Planet Nine might not be a planet at all.

Instead, Jaku Scholtz of Durham University and James Unwin of the University of Illinois at Chicago speculate it could be a primordial black hole that formed soon after the Big Bang and that our solar system later captured, according to Newsweek. Unlike black holes that form from the collapse of giant stars, primordial black holes are thought to have formed from gravitational perturbations less than a second after the Big Bang, and this one would be so small 5 centimeters in diameter that it would be challenging to detect.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community space. Neptune's ring system also has peculiar clumps of dust called arcs.

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.

Neptune took shape when the rest of the solar system formed about 4. Like its neighbor Uranus, Neptune likely formed closer to the Sun and moved to the outer solar system about 4 billion years ago. Neptune is one of two ice giants in the outer solar system the other is Uranus. Of the giant planets, Neptune is the densest. Scientists think there might be an ocean of super hot water under Neptune's cold clouds.

It does not boil away because incredibly high pressure keeps it locked inside. Neptune does not have a solid surface. Its atmosphere made up mostly of hydrogen, helium, and methane extends to great depths, gradually merging into water and other melted ices over a heavier, solid core with about the same mass as Earth. 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, miles per hour 2, kilometers per hour. Even Earth's most powerful winds hit only about miles per hour kilometers per hour.

In a large, oval-shaped storm in Neptune's southern hemisphere dubbed the "Great Dark Spot" was large enough to contain the entire Earth. That storm has since disappeared, but new ones have appeared on different parts of the planet.

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. Introduction Dark, cold, and whipped by supersonic winds, ice giant Neptune is the eighth and most distant planet in our solar system. Namesake Namesake The ice giant Neptune was the first planet located through mathematical calculations. Potential for Life Potential for Life Neptune's environment is not conducive to life as we know it.

Size and Distance Size and Distance With a radius of 15, A 3D model of Neptune, an ice giant planet. This Voyager 2 image, taken in , was the first to show Neptune's rings in detail. The largest by far is Triton , whose discovery on Oct. Triton is the only spherical moon of Neptune — the planet's other 13 moons are irregularly shaped.

It is also unique in being the only large moon in the solar system to circle its planet in a direction opposite to its planet's rotation — this " retrograde orbit " suggests that Triton may once have been a dwarf planet that Neptune captured rather than forming in place, according to NASA. Neptune's gravity is dragging Triton closer to the planet, meaning that millions of years from now, Triton will come close enough for gravitational forces to rip it apart.

Triton is extremely cold, with temperatures on its surface reaching about minus degrees F minus degrees C , making it one of the coldest places in the solar system. Nevertheless, Voyager 2 detected geysers spewing icy matter upward more than 5 miles 8 km , showing its interior appears warm.

Scientists are investigating the possibility of a subsurface ocean on the icy moon. In , seasons were discovered on Triton. The mile-wide km moon had remained unseen since Voyager 2 discovered it in It is Neptune's smallest moon and is just 11 miles 18 km wide. Neptune's unusual rings are not uniform, but possess bright thick clumps of dust called arcs. The rings are thought to be relatively young and short-lived.

Earth-based observations announced in found that Neptune's rings are apparently far more unstable than previously thought, with some dwindling away rapidly, according to an article in the journal Icarus. An international team of astronomers relying on ground telescopes announced the discovery of five new moons orbiting Neptune in Neptune is generally thought to have formed with the initial buildup of a solid core followed by the capture of surrounding hydrogen and helium gas in the nebula surrounding the early sun.

In this model, proto-Neptune formed over the course of 1 to 10 million years. Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community space.