Neptune

[Joseph Buell]

Neptune is about four times wider than Earth. If Earth were a large apple, Neptune would be the size of a basketball.

Source: NASA

[Joseph Buell]

Neptune orbits our Sun, a star, and is the eighth planet from the Sun at a distance of about 2.8 billion miles (4.5 billion kilometers).

Source: NASA

[Joseph Buell]

Neptune takes about 16 hours to rotate once (a Neptunian day), and about 165 Earth years to orbit the sun (a Neptunian year).

Source: NASA

[Joseph Buell]

Neptune is an ice giant. Most of its mass is a hot, dense fluid of "icy" materials – water, methane and ammonia – above a small rocky core.

Source: NASA

[Joseph Buell]

Neptune's atmosphere is made up mostly of molecular hydrogen, atomic helium and methane.

Source: NASA

[Joseph Buell]

Neptune has 14 known moons which are named after sea gods and nymphs in Greek mythology.

Source: NASA

[Joseph Buell]

Neptune has at least five main rings and four more ring arcs, which are clumps of dust and debris likely formed by the gravity of a nearby moon.

Source: NASA

[Joseph Buell]

Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have visited Neptune. No spacecraft has orbited this distant planet to study it at length and up close.

Source: NASA

[Joseph Buell]

Neptune cannot support life as we know it.

Source: NASA

[Joseph Buell]

Because of dwarf planet Pluto’s elliptical orbit, Pluto is sometimes closer to the Sun (and us) than Neptune is.

Source: NASA