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Uranus and Neptune are called ice giants because they are smaller and compositionally different from Jupiter and Saturn, the gas giants.
Uranus and Neptune, the so-called ice giants, are the only major planets in our solar system that aren't easily visible to the unaided eye. Finder charts for them appear each year in Sky & Telescope.
We think of Uranus and Neptune almost as twins. In some ways, they are very similar. But a new study by researchers at PlanetS explains why, in some aspects, they are also radically different.
Neptune is the densest gas giant in our solar system whilst Uranus is 3rd of all 4 gas giants. Uranus has 27 moons whilst Neptune has 14. Uranus is cyan blue in color whereas Neptune is a deeper blue color.
The gas giants of our solar system — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune — together make up a group known as the Jovian planets, according to the University of Colorado at Boulder.
At visible wavelengths Neptune has a distinctly bluer color whereas Uranus is a pale shade of cyan. Astronomers now have an explanation for why the two planets are different colors.
Neptune is almost four times the size of Earth but slightly smaller than Uranus, which makes it the smallest in diameter of the four giant, or Jovian, planets. It is more massive than Uranus, however, having a density roughly 25 percent higher.
The 4 inner planets are the closest to the Sun, and the outer planets are the other four – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The outer planets are also called the Jovian planets or gas giants.
Our solar system consists of our star, the Sun, and everything bound to it by gravity – the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune; dwarf planets such as Pluto; dozens of moons; and millions of asteroids, comets, and meteoroids.
Neptune is one of two ice giants in the outer solar system (the other is Uranus). Most (80% or more) of the planet's mass is made up of a hot dense fluid of "icy" materials – water, methane, and ammonia – above a small, rocky core. Of the giant planets, Neptune is the densest.