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Galileo saw the Neptune in his telescope.
Galileo was an Italian mathematician and scientist. He was famous for investigating the effects of gravity. He was also one who showed off how you could look at space through a telescope. If cloudy skies had not prevented him from seeing its motion, he might have been its discoverer. He thought it was a star when he marked it. -
Neptune was found because Uranus’s orbit was odd.
Neptune was discovered when the planet Uranus’s orbit did not follow the precise path that astronomers mathematically predicted. They thought Uranus must be pulled by another planet farther than itself. When they looked further they found Neptune. -
17 days after Neptune was discovered William Lassell discovered Neptune’s biggest moon, Triton.
Triton was discovered by British astronomer William Lassell on October 10th, 1846, just 17 days after the discovery of Neptune. Lassell was an English brewer and amateur astronomer. He also discovered two moons that orbit Uranus in 1851. -
Nereid, the next largest moon after Triton is discovered.
Gerard Kuiper discovered Nereid in 1851. Nereid has the longest orbit for a moon around any planet. Scientists think that eventually Nereid will collide with another moon. The only picture that Voyager 2 took of Nereid is quite blurry but you can still see it. -
It took Voyager 2 twelve years to reach Neptune from Earth.
The pictures that were taken by Voyager 2 gave us critical information that we use today. In fact, scientists say that they got more information from the pictures and data from Voyager 2 than in the previous 100 years from looking through telescopes. It began its journey in 1977 and ended in 1989. -
Voyager 2 was the only spacecraft to visit Neptune.
This was the last stop of Voyager 2 on its tour of the planets.
Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were spacecrafts launched by NASA to take pictures and collect data from the farthest regions of our solar system. After they completed their missions, they headed in opposite directions of the galaxy and have been gone for over 30 years now. -
Neptune had a Great Dark Spot just like Jupiter’s Great Red Spot.
In the southern atmosphere, the Great Dark Spot was discovered by the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1989. It was called the Great Dark Spot after Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. It was a huge storm that was larger than the planet Earth. Winds were noted to be 1400 miles per hour. No one knows how long the storm had been going for, as Jupiter’s Great Red Spot has lasted for hundreds of years. However, in 1994, the Hubble Space Telescope photographed the planet, and the Great Dark Spot was gone. -
In the 1980’s, a scientist thought that since Uranus had rings, that Neptune might also.
Voyager 2 confirmed that Neptune has 5 rings. The rings are full rings but some were thin and some were lumpy or twisted. Three of them are narrow like the ones around Uranus. Neptune’s outer rings are wider and more spread out. They can only be seen by the most powerful telescopes on Earth. -
6 more moons are discovered by Neptune
These were discovered by the Voyager 2 journey. At this time, we know that Neptune has eleven moons. It seems Neptune has fewer moons than the other planets but scientists think that it likely has more, but we are unable to see them from Earth. -
It takes Neptune 164.8 Earth years to orbit the Sun.
Since 1846, July 12th, 2011, was the end of Neptune’s first complete orbit of the sun. -
Bibliography
https://theplanets.org/neptune/
http://facts.net/neptune/
http://astronomy.nmsu.edu/tharriso/ast105/UranusandNeptune.html
http://space-facts.com/neptune/
http://www.universetoday.com/21999/10-interesting-facts-about-neptune/
http://motherboard.vice.com/it/read/loretta-falcone-intervista-nasa
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2296422/Nasas-Voyager-1-LEFT-solar-35-year-mission-explore-space-began.html
http://solarstory.net/planets/neptune
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/triton -
Bibliography
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap011201.html
http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/photos/neptune-gallery.html
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/nereid
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/galileo-telescope-au.html
http://likesuccess.com/topics/21644/orbit/2
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/galleries/uranus-composite-ring-image
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/15/new-neptune-moon-smallest-photos_n_3600177.html -
Bibliography
Books:
Ride, Sally and O’Shaughnessy, Tam. Exploring Our Solar System. New York: Random House (2003) pp. 88-93
Daniels, Patricia. The New Solar System, Ice Worlds, Moons, and Planets Redefined. Washington D.C.: National Geographic (2009) pp. 31, 41, 156-57, 158-59 -
Goof-proofed by Miss Chan
