CONTENTS THE MOST DISTANT PLANET 4 NEPTUNE’S PHYSICAL FEATURES 6 A GIANT IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM 8 NEPTUNE’S SUPER STORMS 10 DIVING INTO NEPTUNE’S ATMOSPHERE 12 A MAGNETIC PLANET 14 INTERESTING RINGS 16 UNUSUAL ORBIT AND SPIN 18 MANY MOONS 20 NEPTUNE’S LARGEST MOON 22 DISCOVERING NEPTUNE 24 A GREAT VOYAGE 26 NEPTUNE TODAY 28 GLOSSARY 30 FOR MORE INFORMATION 31 INDEX 32
4 THE MOST DISTANT PLANET Neptune is one of the planets that travels around or orbits the sun in the solar system The solar system has a total of eight planets including Earth and Neptune It also includes many moons which orbit the planets In addition scientists have identified many dwarf planets These include Ceres and Pluto Some scientists think there might be at A spacecraft took this image of Neptune from about 4 4 million miles 7 1 million km away
5 Dwarf planets are similar to planets However a dwarf planet is smaller and its gravity is not strong enough to clear other space bodies around its orbit VOCABULARY least one more planet beyond Neptune For now however Neptune is known as the farthest planet from the sun It is about 2 8 billion miles 4 5 billion kilometers away from Earth It is so far away that it is the only planet we can’t see with our naked eyes We need a telescope to see it Neptune is a large planet that is deep blue in color It is a stormy and windy world This image shows what Neptune would look like from the surface of the planetʼs largest moon Triton
