Thursday, May 22, 2014

APOD 4.8

See Explanation.  Clicking on the picture will download
 the highest resolution version available.

What planet do you think this is? Did you say that it was Saturn? Close. This planet is actually Neptune! Yes, for those of you who did not know, Neptune has rings. In fact every planet outside the asteroid belt has some sort of ring or rings encircling it. This is partly due to the excess debris after the formation of our solar system as well is the gravitational pull by the large planets. This image was actually taken by Voyager 2 which was the only spacecraft to visit Neptune. You can see one of Neptune's moon, Triton, which is slightly lit on the bottom. If you look at the bottom of Neptune, the south pole has some cirrus clouds and a dark band circle. There are about 6 rings encircling Neptune and its atmosphere is mostly made up of hydrogen, helium and methane.

No comments:

Post a Comment