Neptune, the eighth planet from the Sun, wasn’t discovered by telescope. French mathematician, Urbain Joseph Le Verrier, noticed that Uranus’s orbit was slightly off. He wondered if another planet lay beyond Uranus and caused the unusual orbit. He sent his ideas to Johann Gottfried Galle, an astronomer working at the Berlin Observatory. Galle located the planet in 1846, on the first night of his search.
Neptune is 2.8 billion miles from the Sun. Like Uranus, it has a blue color caused by methane gas. Scientists believe Neptune has a solid core, about the size of Earth. Neptune has a heavy atmosphere of gases, which gradually becomes liquid water and gas.
Fun Facts about Neptune for Kids
- Neptune has some of the fiercest storms in the solar system. Its storms are three times stronger than those on Jupiter and nine times stronger than Earth’s storms. Winds can reach a whopping 1200 mph
- Neptune’s magnetic field is tilted sideways. This causes electrical disturbances and storms.
- In 1989, Voyager 2 found a large, dark storm spot that was big enough to engulf the whole Earth.
- Neptune’s magnetic field is roughly 27 times times the strength of Earth’s
- Neptune’s atmospheric composition consists of – 80% Hydrogen – 19% Helium and trace amounts of methane
- Neptune’s average surface temperature is chilling -214 Degrees Celsius or -353 Fahrenheit
- Neptune is the forth largest planet in our solar system, we could squeeze our Earth into Neptune up to 60 times.
- Neptune has six rings and 14 moons that we know
- Triton, the largest of Neptune’s moons, spins opposite the direction of the planet’s orbit.
- Triton is the coldest spot found in the universe so far, with a temperature of – 391 degrees Fahrenheit. Geysers spew icy material up to five miles tall on this moon.
Neptune Vocabulary
- Locate: find
- Solid: dense
- Fierce: strong, severe
- Spew: Vomit, erupt, push out with force
Learn More All About Neptune, the Farthest Planet from Sun
Check out this amazing video all about Neptune:
An educational video discussing about Neptune.
Neptune Q&A
Question: How long is one year on Neptune?
Answer: One day is 16 hours and seven minutes, and one year takes 60,190 days.
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Question: How much would I weigh on Neptune?
Answer: If you weigh 60 pounds on Earth, you’d weigh 52 pounds on Neptune.
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