Neptune - the blue world
Irregularities in the orbit of Uranus suggested to early astronomers that there must be another planet beyond Uranus whose gravitational force causes Uranus to move off its predicted path. By using the predictions of the new planet’s orbit, astronomers discovered the planet Neptune in 1846. Galileo saw Neptune in 1613 while observing Jupiter, but he failed to realize that it was a planet, so the discover of Neptune did not occur for another 200 years.
The voyager 2 spacecraft sent back images that gave us much new information about the nature of Neptune’s atmosphere. Although the composition of Neptune’s atmosphere is nearly the same as that of Uranus’s atmosphere, Neptune’s atmosphere contains belts of clouds. At time the of voyager 2’s visit, Neptune had a dark spot, similar to the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. And like the interior of Jupiter and Saturn, Neptune’s interior releases heat to its out layers. This helps the warm gases rise and the cool gases sink, setting up the wind patterns in the atmosphere that create the belts of clouds. Voyager 2 images also revealed the Neptune has a set of very narrow rings. |
