🌍 Neptune is known as the eighth most distant planet from the Sun. It lies more than 4 billion miles from Earth, making it too far away to be seen by the naked eye.
On September 23, 1846, Neptune was the first planet to be discovered through mathematical calculations. It was the second planet after Uranus to be revealed with a telescope, but the first planet discovered by astronomers who were specifically looking for it. Because of its blue color, Neptune was named after the god of the sea in Roman mythology.
The story of the discovery of this mysterious blue giant on the outskirts of the solar system is quite curious and unusual. It was a triumph for Newtonian physics, because it proved that the motion of planets is entirely subject to the laws of gravity.
Neptune has a composition close to Uranus, and both planets are placed in a distinct category of "ice giants". Neptune has a bright blue color with a particular azure tint. Externally, it looks very similar to Uranus, these two planets can even be confused. However, the color of Neptune is more saturated and bright.
Neptune is the smallest of the gas giants. Also called the planet of storms, Neptune is the seat of the strongest winds in the solar system.
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💥 The Extraterrestrial World of the Planet Neptune:
- Neptune is the eighth most distant planet in the solar system. It is also the fourth largest planet in diameter and the third largest in mass. In fact, Neptune's mass is 17 times greater than Earth's while its diameter is only 4 times greater than our planet. Despite its title as the 4th largest planet in the solar system, we could easily fit 58 Earth inside Neptune.
Thus, the average density of Neptune is only 1.6 g / cm3, that is to say about one third of that of the Earth, or about one and a half times more than that of water.
The low densities are characteristic of the four giant planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Among these four, the first two are the least dense because they are mainly made of gas. The densest are Uranus and Neptune because they are mainly made of ice.
With Uranus, Neptune belongs to a subclass of gas giants, called "ice giants" because of their smaller size and their composition made mainly of volatile elements such as methane, ammonia and water, rather than hydrogen and helium.
The average distance between Neptune and the Sun is 4.5 billion km, which is about 30 times the average distance between the Sun and the Earth, and it takes almost 165 years for Neptune to make one complete revolution around our star. The distance between Neptune and Earth is between 4.3 and 4.6 billion km.
On July 12, 2011, Neptune made its first complete orbit since the discovery of the planet in 1846. Seen from our planet, Neptune could thus be observed differently since the day of its discovery, because the period of revolution of the Earth around the Sun, which is 365 days, is not a multiple of the period of revolution of Neptune.
The axial tilt of Neptune is 28.3°, which is similar to the axial tilt of the Earth and Mars. Therefore, the planet experiences similar seasonal changes. However, due to Neptune's long orbital period, the seasons last about forty years each.
Neptune's sidereal rotation period is about 16 hours and 7 minutes. Due to an axial tilt similar to that of the Earth, changes in the sidereal rotation period during its long year are not significant.
Among all the planets of the solar system, this type of rotation is the most pronounced in Neptune. This leads to a strong latitudinal wind shift.
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🎬 On the program today:
- 00:00 - Introduction
- 02:15 - General information about Neptune
- 03:45 - Neptune's orbit and rotation
- 05:53 - Seasons on Neptune
- 07:41 - Gravitational field and orbital resonances
- 10:30 - Neptune's magnetic field
- 12:52 - Neptune Discovery Day
- 17:31 - The Exploration of Neptune
- 22:30 - Hypothesis of the formation of Neptune
- 26:00 - Internal structure of Neptune
- 29:40 - Neptune's atmosphere
- 34:09 - Climate on Neptune
- 40:00 - What is the great dark spot?
- 43:50 - Neptune's moons
- 46:27 - Mysterious moon Triton
- 54:46 - Moon Proteus
- 55:42 - Moon Nereid
- 56:32 - Moon Larissa
- 57:30 - Rings of the ice giant Neptune