Neptune
The Sun's most distant, windswept blue giant
Summary
Neptune is the eighth and most distant planet of the Solar System. Its blue colour comes from methane in its atmosphere absorbing red light. It has the most violent winds in the Solar System, with storms exceeding 2,000 km per hour.
In depth
In 1846 Neptune was predicted mathematically from irregularities in the orbit of Uranus and then confirmed with a telescope, one of the great triumphs of celestial mechanics (Le Verrier and Adams). It is an ice giant: a rocky core covered by water-ammonia-methane ices and a hydrogen-helium atmosphere. Its only large moon, Triton, orbits in the opposite direction to the planet's rotation; it is thought to be a captured Kuiper belt object. When Pluto lost its "planet" status in 2006, Neptune became the system's last official planet.
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