Similarities Between Neptune And Uranus

Space is a vast expanse, which is steadily growing. Within space, there is our galaxy, the Milky Way galaxy, made up of thousands of solar systems. Our Solar System is located on the miner spur of the Milky Way called the Orion arm, “…about 25,000 light-years from the center of the galaxy.” (Bryd), and is just one of the 33 star systems that make up the Solar Interstellar Neighborhood. The Solar System contains one star, the Sun, eight planets, and an asteroid belt; the eight planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, in order from the Sun. Uranus and Neptune are the furthest from the Sun, which gives these two planets many similarities, but also many differences too. Being two separate entities in space the
Neptune and Uranus are both gas giants and have rings. They both have a blue-ish color because of the upper layer of the atmosphere absorbs red light from the sun and reflects the blue light. Both Neptune and Uranus are very windy. Neptune and Uranus both have atmospheres divided into lateral bands. The core of both of the planets is made up of hot, have dense water, ammonia, and methane. Both contain two layers, which are the core and the mantle. The mantels of the two planets are, “…mostly made of a very thick, sweltering combination of water(H2O), ammonia(NH3), and methane(CH4) over a possible heavier, Earth-sized, solid core” (Neptune: Overview). There are also some contrasting features between Neptune and Uranus. Neptune has fourteen moons, Triton, Nereid, Proteus, Thalassa, Larissa, Psamathe, Galatea, Despina, Halimede, Naiad, Neso, Laomedeia, Sao, and S/2004 N1. Uranus has 27 moons, Miranda, Titania, Ariel, Oberon, Umbriel, Puck, Belinda, Cupid, Ophelia, Cordelia, Bianca, Juliet, Mab, Portia, Rosalind, Perdita, Cressida, Desdémona, Sycorax, Setebos, Trinculo, Próspero, Margaret, Francisco, Ferdinand, Caliban, and Stephano. Neptune only has five rings, and Uranus has 13, the rings of Neptune are hardly visible while Uranus’ are somewhat prominent. Uranus is a lighter color of blue than Neptune, and sometimes Uranus can have greenish colored bands. Neptune and Uranus both have such intense gravity
One of the shared occurrences both Uranus and Neptune have been the pass by of Voyager 2. Of course at different times, for Uranus, it was January 24, 1986, and for Neptune, it was August 25, 1989. Both Uranus and Neptune orbit the sun, but they both take different amounts of time to do so. Neptune takes approximately 165 Earth years to make one complete orbit while Uranus takes circa eighty-four Earth years to make an orbit around the sun. So Uranus can almost make two full orbits before Neptune makes one. The names of the moons of Uranus and Neptune were uniquely picked out. These names, however, were chosen based on different things Neptune’s moons were named after sea nymphs, while, “Uranus’ moons named after characters from the works of William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope” (Uranus: Overview). The names of sea nymphs do not apply to Neptune’s latterly found moon S/2004 N1, which is yet to be named. Neptune and Uranus were both discovered, but at different times and by different people. Uranus was discovered first on March 13, 1781, by Sir William Herschel; he had thought at first that Uranus was a comet, but later found out that it was a planet. Upon the naming Herschel tried to name the planet after King George III, but Johann Bode’s suggestion of Uranus after the Greek deity Ouranos was chosen instead. Neptune was ’found’ in 1864, almost a decade later. Neptune, in fact, was a