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
6 NEPTUNE’S PHYSICAL FEATURES Though Neptune is huge it is not the largest planet in our solar system Jupiter Saturn and Uranus are all larger than Neptune Neptune is nearly as big as its neighbor Uranus These planets are sometimes called sister planets because they are so similar in size color and makeup They are also called ice giants because they are both very big and very cold One way scientists compare planets is by measuring the planets dia Earth is much smaller in volume than Nep tune In fact 57 Earths could fit inside of Neptune
7 COMPARE AND CONTRAST Earthʼs diameter is about four times larger than our moonʼs diameter How does the size of our moon compare with the size of Neptune meters A diameter is the distance mea sured from one side of the planet to the other side straight through its center Earth’s diameter is 7,926 miles 12,756 kilometers Nep tune’s diameter is about 31,000 miles 50,000 kilometers It is nearly four times larger than Earth’s diameter Neptune is the farthest known planet from the sun in our solar system Is it any wonder then why it is one of the ice giants
