Neptune

📖 In short

Neptune is the furthest planet from the Sun in the solar system, a beautiful blue ice giant. It's about thirty times further from the Sun than Earth, so we can't see it with our eyes, only with a telescope.

🤩 Did you know?

Neptune is about 49 thousand kilometers across, about 4 times the Earth's width.
The moon Triton is about 2700 kilometers across.
A year on Neptune lasts about 165 Earth years.
Only one spacecraft has visited Neptune: Voyager 2, in 1989.

🔎 Find out more

🌟 Why is it blue?

Neptune's air contains a gas called methane, which absorbs the red in sunlight and reflects the blue, so Neptune looks a lovely deep blue.

🔍 The fastest winds

Neptune has the fastest winds in the solar system, blowing at more than two thousand kilometers an hour, and huge dark storms.

💡 Found with math

Scientists noticed Uranus wasn't moving as it should, so they used math to work out that another planet was pulling on it, found where it must be, then spotted it with a telescope in 1846.

🎯 A moon that goes backwards

Neptune's biggest moon is Triton, which goes around Neptune in the opposite direction to the planet's spin, and has geysers that shoot out gas and ice.