Neptune Solar System Facts

Neptune is named after the roman god of the sea and is one of the fascinating planets in the solar system the planet was the last to be discovered as it was not visible to the naked eye.

Neptune solar system facts.

In fact at 1 638 g cm 3 neptune is the densest gas giant in the solar system. Neptune is the eighth planet from the sun making it the most distant in the solar system this gas giant may have formed much closer to the sun in the early solar system history before migrating out to its current position. The solar system was formed approximately 4 6 billion years ago by the collapse of a giant molecular cloud the mass at its centre collected to form the sun and a flat disk of dust around it. Explore neptune in depth.

It flew past in 1989 on its way out of the solar system. Neptune is the most distant of the solar system s eight planets. The credit for the discovery of the planet was given to le verrier a french mathematician and john adams an english mathematician who had both predicted the existence of a planet x. Solar system facts tell us that the most inner planets mercury venus earth and mars are mostly made up of rock and metal.

The solar system consists of the sun planets dwarf planets moons and numerous smaller objects such as comets and asteroids. Nasa s voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have visited neptune up close. The outer planets jupiter saturn uranus and neptune are mostly made up of hydrogen helium and other gases. In 2011 neptune completed its first 165 year orbit since its discovery in 1846.

Neptune s surface gravity is almost earth like.