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Its namesake is William Lassell, the English astronomer who discovered Neptune's largest moon, Triton. [20] This ring is a faint sheet of material occupying the space between the Le Verrier ring at about 53,200 km and the Arago ring at 57,200 km. [ 4 ] Its average normal optical depth is around 10 −4 , which corresponds to an equivalent depth ...
Astronomers have used telescope data to color-correct Voyager 2 images of Neptune and Uranus, revealing that the planets have a similar greenish blue hue. Color-corrected images reveal accurate ...
Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times the mass of Earth. Compared to its fellow ice giant Uranus, Neptune is slightly more massive, but
2003 UZ 413 is in a 2:3 resonance with Neptune, which means that when it makes two revolutions around the Sun, Neptune makes exactly three. [3] The object rotates very fast. In fact, with a period of about 4.13 hours, it is the fastest rotator known in the Kuiper belt after Haumea. [6] [8]
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Launched in 1977, Voyager 2 made its closest approach to Uranus on 24 January 1986, coming within 81,500 km (50,600 mi) of the cloudtops, before continuing its journey to Neptune. The spacecraft studied the structure and chemical composition of Uranus's atmosphere, [ 101 ] including its unique weather, caused by its extreme axial tilt.
Venus rotates clockwise, and Uranus has been knocked on its side and rotates almost perpendicular to the rest of the Solar System. The ecliptic remains within 3° of the invariable plane over five million years, [ 2 ] but is now inclined about 23.44° to Earth's celestial equator used for the coordinates of poles.
Proteus is the second-largest moon of Neptune and is the largest of its regular prograde moons. It is about 420 km (260 mi) in diameter, larger than Nereid, Neptune's third-largest moon. It was not discovered by Earth-based telescopes because Proteus orbits so close to Neptune that it is lost in the glare of reflected sunlight. [15]