Neptune took the name of the Roman god of the oceans and seas.
On September 23, 1846, Johann Gottfried Galle, using the mathematical work of Urbain Jean Joseph Leverrier, discovered a new planet. The planet took the name of Neptune after the Roman sea god, since, as the eighth from the sun, it was deep in the "depths" of outer space. Neptune is some 30 times further from the sun as is the Earth. The planet is so far distant that a probe sent to explore the world, Voyager 2, required 12 years to arrive there.
Size
Neptune's diameter of 30,775 miles across means the planet is almost four times larger than Earth and could hold as many as 60 Earths inside it if it were hollow. Despite Neptune being 17 times more massive than Earth, the gravity is just 1.19 times stronger than our own. One day on Neptune is the equal of 19.1 hours, but the planet needs so long to circle the sun that a year on the planet is the equivalent of 165 years on Earth.
Atmosphere
The winds on Neptune blow in the opposite direction from which the planet rotates. These winds can reach speeds approaching 1,500 mph, making them the strongest discovered in the solar system. Neptune's atmosphere has a composition of 74 percent hydrogen, 24 percent helium and 1 percent methane gas. The methane gas is what gives Neptune its deep-blue color.
Satellites
Neptune has three large moons and five smaller satellites. Triton is the largest moon and holds the distinction of having the lowest measured temperature of any object in the solar system, according to the Enchanted Learning website. Triton's temperature was minus 391 degrees Fahrenheit on its surface. Another moon, Nereid, has such as irregular orbit about Neptune that at its closest it is just 867,000 miles from it but can then move as far as 6 million miles away.
History
The process of Neptune's discovery created a storm of controversy, according to the Space Today Online website. In 1845, an Englishman named John Couch Adams worked out the mathematics that would explain why Uranus behaved oddly in its orbit, figuring on the presence of another planet's gravity. Leverrier's calculations, independent of Adams', came the next year and Galle found Neptune based on those. However, Adams, whose own figures were quite accurate but given little heed in England, argued he too should get credit for his work. Historians now give both men recognition; Galileo may have found Neptune two centuries earlier but failed to realize what it was.
Considerations
Neptune is colder than the seventh planet from the sun, Uranus, but it is more colorful when viewed through a telescope, says the "National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Night Sky." Voyager revealed faint rings about Neptune, but these are not visible to observers on Earth. Neptune is about five times fainter than the dimmest stars you are able to detect with the naked eye. Neptune's orbit about the sun is nearly circular; only that of Venus is more round.
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