Neptune

The eighth and final planet in solar system, Neptune is the fourth largest planet and takes 164.8 years to complete one orbit of the sun.

Neptune is named after the Roman god of the sea, Neptunus. His brothers are Jupiter, the king of the gods, and Pluto, god of the underworld. Neptunus’ counterpart in the Ancient Greek world was Poseidon.

Discovered in 1846 by Johann Galle, Neptune is the similar to Uranus. Although both are considered gas giants, these two planets are also classified as ice giants, as they contain a significant amount of water, ammonia, and methane ice.

Neptune is orbited by one large moon, Triton, which many astronomers believe to be a dwarf planet that was captured Neptune. That’s because, while all other major moons orbit their planet in anti-clockwise fashion, Triton has a clockwise orbit.

Also its composition is thought to be similar to that of Pluto, suggesting that it formed in the Kuiper Belt region that Pluto inhabits.

Header image: Neptune Full Disk by NASA.