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The relative "hot spot" is due to Neptune's axial tilt, which has exposed the south pole to the Sun for the last quarter of Neptune's year, or roughly 40 Earth years. As Neptune slowly moves towards the opposite side of the Sun, the south pole will be darkened and the north pole illuminated, causing the methane release to shift to the north pole.
Because during their formation Uranus and Neptune incorporated their material as either ice or gas trapped in water ice, the term ice giant came into use. [ 2 ] [ 4 ] In the early 1970s, the terminology became popular in the science fiction community, e.g., Bova (1971), [ 5 ] but the earliest scientific usage of the terminology was likely by ...
Neptune, for example, has an atmosphere made of hydrogen and helium (with just a tinge of methane), and it doesn’t really have a surface—or, at least, not what we think of as a surface.
The term gas giant was coined in 1952 by the science fiction writer James Blish [6] and was originally used to refer to all giant planets.It is, arguably, something of a misnomer because throughout most of the volume of all giant planets, the pressure is so high that matter is not in gaseous form. [7]
A giant planet, sometimes referred to as a jovian planet (Jove being another name for the Roman god Jupiter), is a diverse type of planet much larger than Earth. Giant planets are usually primarily composed of low-boiling point materials (), rather than rock or other solid matter, but massive solid planets can also exist.
The geology of Triton encompasses the physical characteristics of the surface, internal structure, and geological history of Neptune's largest moon Triton. With a mean density of 2.061 g/cm 3 , [ 1 ] Triton is roughly 15-35% water ice by mass; Triton is a differentiated body, with an icy solid crust atop a probable subsurface ocean and a rocky ...
Triton is differentiated, with a crust of primarily ice atop a probable subsurface ocean of liquid water and a solid rocky-metallic core at its center. Although Triton's orbit is nearly circular with a very low orbital eccentricity of 0.000016 , [ 2 ] Triton's interior may still experience tidal heating through obliquity tides.
The internal structure of the inner planets. The internal structure of the outer planets. A planetary core consists of the innermost layers of a planet. [1] Cores may be entirely liquid, or a mixture of solid and liquid layers as is the case in the Earth. [2]