The Planet Neptune

Neptune

The planet Neptune was discovered on September 23, 1846 by Jean Joseph Le Verrier and Johann Gall. Neptune is the eighth and farthest planet from the Sun in the Solar System and is the last of the known Planets. Nearly 4.5 billion kilometers from the Sun, Neptune orbits the Sun once every 165 years. It is invisible to the naked eye because of the extreme distance from Earth. The atmosphere of Neptune is made of mostly hydrogen, helium, and traces of methane. With the methane gas in the atmosphere, this is what gives Neptune its blue color.

Neptune is one of the coldest and windiest planets in the entire solar system. The average temperatures are -353 degrees fahrenheit. The wind speeds are averaged around 700 mph and have reached up to a devastating 1,500 mph. Those were the strongest winds ever recorded on any planet in the solar system. In 1989, the Voyager 2 tracked a dark storm in the southern hemisphere. This was named the “Dark Spot”. The white spots are cirrus clouds.
Since then astronomers rely on ground telescopes to discover more about the planet Neptune. Currently there are no future missions to visit the Neptunian