Exploring Neptune: The Distant, Windy Planet

Neptune orbits far from Earth, visible in our night sky in the constellation Aquarius. It's the only planet invisible to the naked eye, requiring a telescope to observe its blue hue.

Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun, orbiting at an average distance of about 4.5 billion kilometers (2.8 billion miles), which is 30 times farther than Earth's distance.

Neptune's orbital period is approximately 165 Earth years. Since its discovery in 1846, it has only completed one full orbit and is now in the midst of its second.

Due to its extreme axial tilt of 28.32 degrees, Neptune experiences drastic seasonal changes. Each season lasts over 40 Earth years, significantly altering its atmospheric conditions.

Neptune hosts some of the solar system's most violent weather, with supersonic winds reaching up to 2,100 kilometers per hour (1,300 miles per hour), far surpassing Earth's weather systems.

Neptune boasts 14 known moons, with Triton being the largest. Triton orbits in the opposite direction of Neptune's rotation, hinting it may have been captured from the Kuiper Belt.

NASA's Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have visited Neptune, flying by in 1989. The images it sent back revolutionized our understanding of this distant, icy world.

On Neptune, extreme pressure and temperatures cause carbon atoms to crystallize into diamonds, resulting in literal diamond rain!