Quick facts
- The size if Neptune is 15,299 miles.
- Neptune's distance from the sun is 2,798,000,000 miles.
- Neptune has a rotational period of 0.671.
- A day on Neptune is 16 hours, 6 minutes and 36 seconds.
- A year on Neptune is 164.79 years.
- Neptune currently has 14 moons.
- Neptune’s atmosphere is about 80% hydrogen, 19% helium, with other amounts of
other ices, like methane, ammonia and water ice. - Neptune was discovered by John Couch Adams and Urbain Le Verrier. They couldn't
decide who would take credit for discovering it, so they were both given credit. - Neptune was named by Urbain Le Verrier (one of the founders). All Neptune was
called was “the planet exterior to Uranus” or “Le Verrier’s planet” Johann Galle
proposed the name Janus. Someone else proposed Oceanus. Urbain Le
Verrier proposed Neptune. Soon after that Neptune was accepted and
that was it's name from there on. - How long it would take to get to Neptune from Earth would depend on the path
chosen and on where Neptune and Earth were in their orbits when the mission was
launched.