Midmonth Check-In: June 2024 and Neptune

    

  Introduction and Monthly Reminders   

    Although hot, the first few weeks of June have been great for stargazing. I was unable to do any serious stargazing but was able to look up and see the Moon and the stars after sunset. Observers can still see the Moon pass close by Spica and Antares, as well as Saturn and Neptune. The Summer solstice will occur on the 20th, and the Full Moon will occur on the 21st.    

Neptune

    Neptune was discovered by Johann Galle in 1846 and is the first planet located through mathematical calculations. With an average distance of 30 AU, Neptune is the most distant known planet orbiting our Sun. It takes Neptune 165 Earth years to complete a revolution about the Sun, and it has only completed one orbit since its discovery. One day on Neptune lasts only 16 hours. This most distant planet is named after the Roman god of the sea, Neptune. 

    Neptune formed about 4.5 billion years ago with the Sun and the rest of the solar system. Astronomers believe that Neptune formed closer to the Sun and has since been pushed outward due to the gravitational interaction of the planets, the Sun, and even other stars passing close to our own. Like Uranus, Neptune is considered an ice giant, a planet made up of water, methane, and ammonia in an icy state. Both planets also have large amounts of hydrogen and helium. like the gas giants. It is also believed that Neptune has a small rocky core, perhaps about the same mass as the Earth. It has even been speculated that all of the rocky planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, were once ice giants but could not hang onto their thick atmosphere due to solar winds. Out of all the giant planets, Neptune is the most dense. 

    Like the other giant planets of the solar system, Neptune also has rings and many moons. The ring system is not as elaborate as that of Saturn, but Neptune does have at least five main rings. Neptune is home to at least 16 moons, with one being more peculiar than any other large moon in the solar system. Triton, the largest moon of Neptune, is slightly larger than dwarf planet Pluto and orbits around Neptune in the opposite direction of any other large moon in the solar system. Due to this peculiar motion, astronomers believe that Triton likely came from the Kuiper Belt and was gravitationally captured by Neptune. 

    Neptune has a diameter of about 30,800 miles, making it slightly smaller than Uranus. Both ice giants are made up of the same materials and, as such, have about the same color, despite the images first released by NASA. The first images show Neptune as a deeper blue color, like the ocean, to help reveal the details of the storms in its atmosphere. Neptune is tilted slightly on its axis at 28° so it experiences seasons, like Earth and Mars. Unlike the inner planets, the seasons last for over 40 Earth years.     

    In the 178 years since its discovery, Neptune has only been visited by one spacecraft. In 1989, Voyager 2 flew by Neptune, returning the most used image of this planet to date. There are currently no scheduled missions to return to this ice giant. 

    

    Check back soon for my next post!

    

Now get outside and look up!