![]() Neptune is mostly composed of water, ammonia and methane and could be hiding a "super hot" ocean under its chilly clouds, according to NASA. (Image credit: Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) (opens in new tab) What is Neptune made of? ![]() This illustration shows the diamond rain on Neptune. Related: The sun has blasted Mercury with a plasma wave "This all points towards a more complicated picture of Neptune’s atmosphere and how it changes with time." "I think Neptune is itself very intriguing to many of us because we still know so little about it," study lead author Michael Roman, an astronomer at the University of Leicester in the U.K., said in a statement (opens in new tab) at the time. The researchers speculated that the plummeting temperatures in Neptune's atmosphere could be caused by either an unidentified element, extreme weather or changes in solar radiation. However, a 2022 study published in The Planetary Science Journal (opens in new tab) used infrared images of the planet to determine that despite entering summer in 2005, Neptune's global temperature actually dropped by 14.4 F (8 C) between 20. Seasons on Neptune last about 40 years each, and the planet's southern hemisphere is currently in the Earth equivalent of summer. Neptune also has the strongest winds in the solar system, which can reach 1,200 mph (1,9301 km/h), according to Cool Cosmos. "As the planet slowly gravitationally contracts, the material falling inward changes its potential energy into thermal energy, which is then released upwards out of the planet." "The extra heat source on Neptune is largely due to gravitational contraction," Joshua Tollefson, a data scientist formerly at the University of California, Berkeley, told All About Space magazine (opens in new tab) in 2019. Neptune emits more than twice as much heat as it absorbs from the sun, similar to Jupiter and Saturn, Live Science previously reported. Being farther away from the sun than Uranus, you might expect Neptune to be colder, but the two planets are about the same temperature. The temperature in Neptune's atmosphere is around minus 373 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 225 degrees Celsius), according to the National Air and Space Museum. The name Neptune comes from the Roman god of the sea of the same name, according to Cool Cosmos (opens in new tab), a website run by the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology. ![]() Neptune appears blue, or blue-green, because of the methane in its atmosphere, according to Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (opens in new tab) in Washington D.C. Only one of Earth's probes has ever reached Neptune - Voyager 2, which snapped the first images of the blue planet in 1989 on its way out of the solar system. Astronomers had previously spotted Neptune through telescopes as early as 1612, but hadn't identified it as a planet, according to NASA (opens in new tab). Neptune isn't visible to the naked eye, but the researchers were able to confirm the planet's existence using a telescope. Scientists discovered Neptune in 1846, after they conducted orbit calculations for Uranus that indicated there was an unknown planet affecting Uranus's gravity, according to the Natural History Museum (opens in new tab) in London, U.K. ![]()
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