Neptune is an icy giant planet recognized generally by its’ blue color. It consists of a thick fog of water, ammonia and methane which covered its smaller solid core. Its distance from the Sun is about 4.5 billion km away which is about 30 times more than Earth’s distance from the Sun.
[ihc-hide-content ihc_mb_type=”show” ihc_mb_who=”2,3,5″ ihc_mb_template=”1″ ] Due to its distance, it takes Neptune 165 years to complete its orbit around the Sun. Neptune is the only planet in the solar system that cannot be seen with naked eyes and is the first one to be predicted of its existence using mathematics prior to its discovery.
Being the most distant planet in our solar system, Neptune is a lonely planet with only Uranus as its neighbor. In fact, there was only one spacecraft that has ever visited Neptune, which is NASA’s Voyager 2. Voyager 2 was launched in August, 1977 with its mission to pass by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in close proximity. Voyager 2 had successfully passed by Neptune on August, 1989, flying over 4.8km from the planet cloud top.
During this encounter, the spacecraft discovered 6 new moons which are Proteus, Larissa, Despina, Galatea, Thalassa, and Naiad as well as 4 new rings. Voyager 2 also discovered three major features on the planet clouds, namely the Lesser Dark Spot, the Great Dark Spot, and Scooter. After passing Neptune, Voyager 2 had continued its course out of the solar system and put in low power mode to conserve energy. Until July 2019, Voyager 2 has continued to send data to Earth as it travels through interstellar space. [/ihc-hide-content]
