{"id":2664,"date":"2018-01-19T12:51:47","date_gmt":"2018-01-19T12:51:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.popastro.com\/main_spa1\/youngstargazers\/?page_id=2664"},"modified":"2018-01-19T13:37:31","modified_gmt":"2018-01-19T13:37:31","slug":"neptune","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.popastro.com\/youngstargazers\/neptune\/","title":{"rendered":"Neptune"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Neptune\"
Neptune, photographed by Voyager 2 in 1989
Credit JPL\/Galaxy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Amazing fact!<\/h3>\n

For part of its 248-year journey around the Sun, Pluto actually comes inside Neptune\u2019s orbit. This meant that when Pluto was still a planet, Pluto would become the eighth planet and Neptune the ninth! Now that Pluto is not a planet it makes things much simpler!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

About Neptune<\/h3>\n

Neptune is the eighth and last planet in the Solar System. It is an ice giant \u2013 a frozen gas giant \u2013 like Uranus. It looks a bit like Uranus too, though instead of a pale turquoise colour it is a rich blue, with white, wispy clouds of methane that race around the planet, and dark spots that are storms like Jupiter\u2019s Great Red Spot that occasionally appear.<\/p>\n

Like Uranus, not a great deal is known about Neptune, with Voyager 2 its only, brief, visitor. It has 13 (unlucky?) moons, including the largest, Triton (not to be confused with Saturn\u2019s moon Titan), which is the seventh largest moon in the Solar System. It is covered in nitrogen ice and \u2018pink snow\u2019, which is actually material deposited by fountains of nitrogen that burst out of the ground!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Neptune's
Neptune’s Great Dark Spot, left, and Triton’s puzzling surface. Credit: NASA\/JPL<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Click on each of the images below to find out more about that Solar System object!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Sun\"<\/a>\"Mercury\"<\/a>\"Venus\"<\/a>\"Earth\"<\/a>\"Mars\"<\/a>\"Asteroids\"<\/a>\"Jupiter\"<\/a>\"Saturn\"<\/a>\"Uranus\"<\/a>\"Neptune\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amazing fact! For part of its 248-year journey around the Sun, Pluto actually comes inside Neptune\u2019s orbit. This meant that when Pluto was still a planet, Pluto would become the eighth planet and Neptune the ninth! Now that Pluto isRead more<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2664","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t