Related topics: solar system · planets · orbit · jupiter · saturn

The gas (and ice) giant Neptune

Neptune is the eight planet from our Sun, one of the four gas giants, and one of the four outer planets in our Solar System. Since the "demotion" of Pluto by the IAU to the status of a dwarf planet – and/or Plutoid and ...

The moons of Neptune

Neptune, that icy gas giant that is the eight planet from our Sun, was discovered in 1846 by two astronomers – Urbain Le Verrier and Johann Galle. In keeping with the convention of planetary nomenclature, Neptune was named ...

Ice giants at opposition

It seems as if the planets are fleeing the evening sky, just as the Fall school star party season is getting underway. Venus and Mars have entered the morning sky, and Jupiter reaches solar conjunction this week. Even glorious ...

Neptune's moon of Triton

The planets of the outer solar system are known for being strange, as are their many moons. This is especially true of Triton, Neptune's largest moon. In addition to being the seventh-largest moon in the solar system, it ...

Finding Pluto—the hunt for Planet X

Our solar system's shadowy ninth (dwarf) planet was the subject of furious speculation and a frantic search for almost a century before it was finally discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930. And remarkably, Pluto's reality ...

Neptune's badly behaved magnetic field

Combining 26-year old data with supercomputer simulations, a team of scientists at Imperial College London have modelled Neptune's magnetic field in detail for the first time. The researchers find that the furthest planet ...

What is the Kuiper Belt?

Dr. Mike Brown is a professor of planetary astronomy at Caltech. He's best known as the man who killed Pluto, thanks to his team's discovery of Eris and other Kuiper Belt Objects. We asked him to help us explain this unusual ...

Helium-shrouded planets may be common in our galaxy

They wouldn't float like balloons or give you the chance to talk in high, squeaky voices, but planets with helium skies may constitute an exotic planetary class in our Milky Way galaxy. Researchers using data from NASA's ...

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