Neptune:

(Say it in French! Neptune)

The farthest of the planets, Neptune is about 2,795 million miles away from the sun. It has a diameter of 30,740 miles.  Neptune has circular storms similar to Jupiter, but none have lasted as long, or are quite as big.  There are 8 moons that orbit Neptune and it also has a faint ring around it.  A day on Neptune takes a little more than 16 Earth hours, and a year is 165 Earth Years.

 

More Facts About Neptune:

 

Size: 30,740 mi. diameter

Distance from Sun: 2,795 milliom mi. from the sun. Another way to think of it is, Neptune is 922,350,000,000 great white sharks from the sun!

Terrain/Surface:

• doesn't have a surface to walk on
• farthest away of "gas giants"
• frozen surface with gashes, craters and frozen water lakes (caused by water volcanoes that erupt)
• blue methane clouds that surround it are very cold (-350 degrees), but the rocky iron core (middle) is hotter than sun's surface

Climate:

• the extreme heat (from core) causes violent storms and hurricanes
• the storms appear as "Dark Spots"; the largest one is bigger than Earth
• an icy blue world with the wildest weather of all the planets
• winds blow at over 1200 miles per hour (hurricane winds on earth are about 74 miles per hour)

Atmosphere: Neptune has an atmosphere of hydrogen, helium and methane (all gases). Just outside of the inner core of Neptune, these gases are compressed (squashed)  into a mass of slush.

How Long is one Rotation of the Planet: a little more than 16 Earth hours

How Long is one orbit of the Sun: 165 Earth years

Satellites: 13 moons

 

Fun Fact: Neptune has a lot of dark spots or storms. Astronauts call one of the lighter spots "Scooter" because it seems to chase all the other storms around. 

DID YOU KNOW?

Neptune is 2,376,880,000,000 black bears from Earth! OH MY!