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The Kuiper Belt is similar to the asteroid belt and larger by far – it is said to be 20 to 200 times bigger. It consists of small bodies which are regarded as remnants of the Solar System's formation. However, as opposed to the Asteroid belt's rocky objects, Kuiper belt bodies are made of frozen materials, termed ices particularly methane, water and ammonia.

The scattered disk is another distant region beyond Neptune's orbit populated by a few, minor, icy planets. It is widely believed to be the place of origin for a majority of periodic comets. The Oort cloud is said to be a cloud of comets and a majority of objects in this region are believed to be from the scattered disk as well.

TNOs have only been studied using terrestrial or earth-orbiting observatories. Pluto, previously classified as a planet is the most popular trans-Neptunian object and the first TNO to be discovered as well. Pluto was relatively easy to find because among all known TNOs, it has the highest apparent magnitude.

While it took more than 60 years for another TNO discovery to be made, there have been over 1,000 TNOs discovered since then, varying in sizes, orbits and composition. Its discovery spawned systematic searches for other TNOs. Other known Trans Neptunian objects are Eris (which is said to be bigger than Pluto and is discovered relatively recently, in 2005), Makemake and Haumea. A lot of discovered TNOs are binaries or two bodies that orbit each other, a notable example of which is Pluto and its ‘moon' Charon.

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Solar System's outer planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are all gas giants. Jupiter and Saturn are composed mainly of molecular hydrogen, metallic hydrogen and helium. While Uranus and Neptune, the ice giants, are made up of water, ammonia and methane ices on their mantle, and hydrogen, helium and methane gases on the surface. Hence, their beautiful baby blue and ultramarine colors.

The sad apart about these gas giants is that landing with a spaceship on them isn't possible because they don't have any surface. And as one goes closer to their cores gaseous atmospheres become thicker and denser. The difference between a rocky planet and a gas giant is that unlike the former, the latter's atmosphere is also indistinguishable with its mantle. So extraterrestrial creatures from Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and other gas giants in the Universe are quite unthinkable.

Gas Giants

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The particles of icy methane in the clouds takes orange and red light waves and absorbs them, which leaves blue light waves to make an escape and create an outward reflection through our eyes. This is the process of how the sunlight is being reflected off to the atmosphere of the planet Neptune that causes its blue appearance.

Another feature of the planet Neptune is its Great Dark Spot. The Great Dark Spot of the planet Neptune is actually a depression in its atmosphere that is surrounded by high cirrus type of clouds. However, this spot does not have stability in its appearance. After a few years of being discovered by the Voyagers, this spot disappeared and in the year 1995, it appeared again in the northern Hemisphere of the planet Neptune. At the time it was first discovered, it appeared to be slowly moving but after the rotation rate of Neptune was finally determined, the Great Dark Spot showed that it does not slowly move with the planet but moves in the direction that is said to be opposite to the spin of the planet at supersonic speeds. The speed is said to be ten times of the Earth’s hurricane speed.

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This planet has gases similar to that of Uranus. Even though Neptune and Uranus are also categorized as gas planets like Saturn and Jupiter, to make a distinction between them, Neptune and Uranus are classified as “ice giants” because its atmosphere has higher levels of water, ammonia and methane. Other gases in its atmosphere that contribute to its color are hydrogen, helium, hydrocarbons and some believe nitrogen is also present albeit there are very little traces of it. The temperature of Neptune is also one of a kind because it is considered to have one of the coldest temperatures in the Solar System. Liquids will automatically freeze because of its temperature that drops down to −218 °C.

Much like Jupiter, Neptune also has a great spot. A great red spot is on Jupiter, while a great dark spot is on Neptune. The spot found on the lower region of Neptune is actually a storm. Massive amounts of clouds and strong gusts of winds, which reach speeds of up to 2,100 km/h, form that region. Astronomers up until now have no solid information as to how long the storm has been ongoing.

Simulated Voyage over Neptune

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The discovery of the planet’s existence took numerous studies and astrological observations. First off, there’s Alexis Bouvard, the French astrologer who hypothesized that there is a planet after Uranus. Bouvard observed the Uranus and noticed some motion irregularities. In a nutshell, the motion of the planets can affect one another due to various factors—and the motion of Uranus suggested that there was something affecting its movement. This gave birth to his hypothesis. Before him, however, Galileo Galilee actually saw Neptune, although he mistook it for a fixed star.

The actual discovery, then, is credited to two astrologers, John Couch Adams of Britain and Urbain Le Verreir of France. Both pursued the hypothesis independently, with Adams sending his observations to the Royal Astronomer George Airy and Le Verrier publishing his estimates. Airy asked James Challis of the Cambridge Observatory and Le Verrier urged Johann Gottfried Galle of the Berlin Observatory to find the planet according to their calculations. The discovery was also made independently. Because the discoveries were made individually, there was a furor over the credit. The scientific community then decided to give the credit to both Adams and Le Verrier.

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Only on 1781 in which planet Uranus was discovered by a person named William Hershel did the astronomers arrive at the final realization of the possibility of another planet present beyond its orbit. John C. Adams, a mathematician and a British astronomer made the decision of calculating the location of the planet that he thought was only there somewhere. He set his heart and mind to work on this on the year 1843 and on 1845, he was able to determine where Neptune was located. He sent the results of his discovery to an astronomer royal of England named Sir George B. Airy. Airy did not take any action with regards to Adam’s work.

Without the knowledge of Adams, another mathematician and astronomer living in France by the name of Urbain J.J. Leverier also started working for the purpose of locating the planet. His calculations resulted to predictions on the exact area of Neptune. The area resulted from Leverier’s calculations is almost the same as the prediction of Adams. Leverier sent his work results to Johann G. Galle of Urania Observatory located in Berlin, Germany and with the predictions presented by Leverrier, Galle together with his assistant named Heinrich L. d’Arrest finally found the exact location of planet Neptune on September 1846.

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The moons of Neptune are classified as Regular Moons and Irregular Moons. Regular moons are closer to the planet, some even closer than Neptune’s planetary rings. Irregular moons orbit farther from Neptune.

The regular moons consist of Despina, Galatea, Larissa, Naiad, Proteus and Thalassa. Naiad and Thalassa are the two regular moons closest to the planet and orbits between two of Neptune’s planetary rings. Despina is believed by astronomers to be a shepherd moon; small moons that orbit just outside the edge of planetary rings.

Galatea is the fourth moon closest to Neptune and has a surface that displays no geological changes. It is believed that Galatea is a piece of one of Neptune’s ancient satellites. Galatea has been discovered to slowly move towards the surface of Neptune, which indicates that it will either crash with Neptune, or break up into planetary rings. Larissa and Proteus are the two largest of Neptune’s regular moons. Larissa has an estimated diameter of 200 km while Proteus is estimated to be around 150-250 km.

The irregular moons of Neptune consist of Halimede, Laomedia, Nereid, Neso, Psamanthe, Sao and Triton. Triton is the largest moon with a 2,700 km diameter and is larger than the dwarf planets of the solar system Pluto and Eris. It has such a great mass that it accounts for 99.5% of the mass to orbit Neptune, moons and rings combined. Scientists believe that there may be liquid water inside Triton’s surface that they refer to as “ocean”.

Moons of Neptune

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The Neptune rings are named after the five scientists that contributed most in the study of the planet:

1. Galle ring – Named after the German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle. It is the ring closest to Neptune about 41,000 km away from the surface and is estimated to be 2,000 kilometers wide. It is composed mainly of dust particles amounting to at least 40% of the ring’s material.
2. Le Verrier ring – Named after the French mathematician Ubain Le Verrier who predicted the existence of Neptune through mathematics without using any direct observation of the planet itself. It is a narrow ring with a width of only 113 kilometers and orbits 53,200 kilometers away from Neptune. Like the Galle ring, it is composed mainly of dust.
3. Lassell ring – Named after the English astronomer William Lassell who discovered the first and largest moon of Neptune, Triton, 17 days after the planet’s discovery. It is the widest of the five rings with a width two times that of the Galle ring. Its dust composition is around 20% – 40%.
4. Arago ring – Named after the French astronomer, mathematician and physicist Francois Arago. It is narrower than the Le Verrier ring with a width of only 100 kilometers.
5. Adams ring – Named by the British astronomer and mathematician John Couch Adams who, like Le Verrier, predicted Neptune’s existence and its location using mathematics. The Adams ring is the outermost ring and is the most closely studied ring. It is also the narrowest of Neptune’s ring being only about 35 kilometers wide.  Adams ring acts like a shepherd, Neptune’s Galatea that creates the wiggles in the ring.

Rings of Neptune

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In high altitudes, the atmosphere in Neptune is composed of 80% hydrogen and 19% helium with a small amount of methane. At wavelengths above 600 nm, absorption of bands of methane occurs in the red to infrared parts of the spectrum.

Neptune is blue because of the absorption of red light by the methane in its atmosphere. It has a diameter of 49,500 km (30,764 miles) and estimated to be more than 3.9 times larger than that of earth.

However it is important to note that the same methane content exists in Uranus, and yet the hues of blue differ between the two planets. Neptune is the darker of the two. Neptune is said to have an unknown substance creating the darker blue color.

Neptune’s troposphere is composed of clouds that differ in composition based on the ranging altitude. Methane clouds fill the upper-level of Neptune. The temperature and pressure (below one bar) of that area is perfect for methane to condense. Pressures between 1-5 bars allow ammonia and hydrogen sulfide clouds to form.

If the pressure is more than 5 bars, ammonium sulfide, hydrogen sulfide and water clouds may form. Clouds of water-ice may form at 50 bars of pressure. The temperature in that area is roughly 0 degrees Celsius.

The lower stratosphere of Neptune is foggy because of the condensation of acetylene and ethane. There are also small amounts of hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide present in Neptune.

The thermosphere of Neptune is very high. It is around 750 K. Scientists haven’t figured out where the heat generates from as Neptune is very far from the Sun. Many theories have been suggested and have yet to be proven.

Neptunes Dynamic Atmosphere

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