Neptune

Introduction

Neptune is named for the Roman god of the sea, who is identified with the Greek deity Poseidon, a son of the Titan Cronus (the Roman god Saturn) and a brother of Zeus (the Roman god Jupiter). It is the second planet to have been found by means of a telescope. Its discovery in 1846 was a remarkable combination of the application of solid Newtonian physics and a belief in a numerological scheme that later proved to be scientifically unfounded (see below Neptune's discovery). Neptune's orbit is almost perfectly circular; as a result, its distance from the Sun varies comparatively little over its nearly 164-year period of revolution. Although the dwarf planet Pluto's mean distance from the Sun is greater than Neptune's, its orbit is so eccentric (elongated) that for about 20 years of each revolution Pluto is actually nearer the Sun than is Neptune.

Neptune is almost four times the size of Earth but slightly smaller than Uranus, which makes it the smallest in diameter of the four giant, or Jovian, planets. It is more massive than Uranus, however, having a density roughly 25 percent higher. Like the other giant planets, Neptune consists primarily of hydrogen, helium, water, and other volatile compounds, along with rocky material, and it has no solid surface. It receives less than half as much sunlight as Uranus, but heat escaping from its interior makes Neptune slightly warmer than Uranus. The heat liberated may also be responsible for the storminess in Neptune's atmosphere, which exhibits the fastest winds seen on any planet in the solar system.

Neptune has more than a dozen moons (natural satellites), only two of which had been discovered before the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew past the planet in 1989, and a system of rings, which had been unconfirmed until Voyager's visit. As is the case for Uranus, most of what astronomers know about Neptune, including its rotation period and the existence and characteristics of its magnetic field and magnetosphere, was learned from a single spacecraft encounter. In recent years new knowledge of the Neptunian system has come as a result of advances in Earth-based observational technology.

Basic astronomical data

Neptune's orbital period of 163.72 years means that by mid-2010 it will have circled the Sun only once since its discovery in September 1846. Consequently, astronomers expect to be making refinements in calculating its orbital size and shape well into the 21st century. Voyager 2's encounter with Neptune resulted in a small upward revision of the planet's estimated mean distance from the Sun, which is now thought to be 4,498,250,000 km (2,795,083,000 miles). Its orbital eccentricity of 0.0086 is the second lowest of the planets; only Venus's orbit is more circular. Neptune's rotation axis is tipped toward its orbital plane by 29.6°, somewhat larger than Earth's 23.4°. As on Earth, the axial tilt gives rise to seasons on Neptune, and, because of the circularity of Neptune's orbit, the seasons (and the seasons of its moons) are of nearly equal length, each nearly 41 years in duration.

Neptune's rotation period was established when Voyager 2 detected radio bursts associated with the planet's magnetic field and having a period of 16.11 hours. This value was inferred to be the rotation period at the level of the planet's interior where the magnetic field is rooted. Neptune's equatorial diameter measured at the one-bar pressure level (the pressure of Earth's atmosphere at sea level) is 49,528 km (30,775 miles), which is only about 3 percent shy of the diameter of Uranus. Because of a flattening of the poles caused by the planet's relatively fast rotation, Neptune's polar diameter is 848 km (527 miles) less than its diameter at the equator. Although Neptune occupies a little less volume than Uranus, owing to its greater density—1.64 grams per cubic cm, compared with about 1.3 for Uranus—Neptune's mass is 18 percent higher. For additional orbital and physical data about Neptune, see the table.