Planet Neptune: Facts About Its Orbit, Moons & Rings Planet Neptune: Facts About Its Orbit, Moons & Rings By Charles Q. Choi, Space.com Contributor | November 25, 2014 05:14pm ET MORE Neptune’s winds travel at more than 1,500 mph, and are the fastest planetary winds in the solar system. Credit: NASA/JPL Neptune is the eighth planet from the sun. It was the first planet to get its existence predicted by mathematical calculations before it was actually seen through a telescope on Sept. 23, 1846. Irregularities in the orbit of Uranus led French astronomer Alexis Bouvard to suggest that the gravitational pull from another celestial body might be responsible. German astronomer Johann Galle then relied on subsequent calculations to help spot Neptune via telescope . Previously, astronomer Galileo Galilei sketched the planet, but he mistook it for a star due to its slow motion. In accordance with all the other planets seen in the sky, this new world was given a name from Greek and Roman mythology — Neptune, the Roman god of the sea.

Physical characteristics Neptune's cloud cover has an especially vivid blue tint that is partly due to an as-yet-unidentified compound and the result of the absorption of red light by methane in the planets mostly hydrogen-helium atmosphere. Photos of Neptune reveal a blue planet, and it is often dubbed an ice giant, since it possesses a thick, slushy fluid mix of water, ammonia and methane ices under its atmosphere and is roughly 17 times Earth's mass and nearly 58 times its volume, according to a NASA fact sheet . Neptune's rocky core alone is thought to be roughly equal to Earth's mass , NASA says. Despite its great distance from the sun , which means it gets little sunlight to help warm and drive its atmosphere, Neptune's winds can reach up to 1,500 mph (2,400 kph), the fastest detected yet in the solar system . These winds were linked with a large dark storm that Voyager 2 tracked in Neptune's southern hemisphere in 1989. This oval-shaped, counterclockwise-spinning "Great Dark Spot" was large enough to contain the entire Earth, and moved westward at nearly 750 mph (1,200 kph).

This storm seemed to have vanished when the Hubble Space Telescope later searched for it. Hubble has also revealed the appearance and then fading of two other Great Dark Spots over the past decade. Neptune's magnetic poles are tipped over by roughly 47 degrees compared with the poles along which it spins. As such, the planet's magnetic field, which is about 27 times more powerful than Earth's, undergoes wild swings during each rotation. By studying the cloud formations on the gas giant, scientists were able to calculate that a day on Neptune lasts just under 16 hours . Orbital characteristics Neptune's elliptical, oval-shaped orbit keeps the planet an average distance from the sun of almost 2.8 billion miles (4.5 billion kilometers), or roughly 30 times as far away as Earth, making it invisible to the naked eye. Neptune goes around the sun once roughly every 165 Earth years, and completed its first orbit, since being discovered , in 2011. Every 248 years, Pluto moves inside Neptune's orbit for 20 years or so, during which time it is closer to the sun than Neptune.

Nevertheless, Neptune remains the farthest planet from the sun, since Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006. Composition & structure Atmospheric composition (by volume): hydrogen, 80 percent; helium, 19.0 percent; methane, 1.5 percent Magnetic field: Roughly 27 times more powerful than Earth's Composition : The overall composition of Neptune is, by mass, thought to be about 25 percent rock, 60 to 70 percent ice, and 5 to 15 percent hydrogen and helium, according to Tristan Guillot, author of "Interiors of Giant Planets Inside and Outside the Solar System" in the journal Science. Internal structure: Mantle of water, ammonia and methane ices; Core of iron and magnesium-silicate Orbit & rotation Average distance from the sun: 2,795,084,800 miles (4,498,252,900 km).

By comparison: 30.069 times farther than Earth Perihelion (closest approach to the sun): 2,771,087,000 miles (4,459,630,000 km). By comparison: 29.820 times that of Earth Aphelion (farthest distance from the sun): 2,819,080,000 miles (4,536,870,000 km). By comparison: 30.326 times that of Earth (Source: NASA ) Neptune's moons Neptune has 14 known moons , named after lesser sea gods and nymphs from Greek mythology. The largest by far is Triton , whose discovery on Oct. 10, 1846, was in a sense enabled by beer — amateur astronomer William Lassell used the fortune he made as a brewer to finance his telescopes. Triton is the only spherical moon of Neptune — the planet's other 13 moons are irregularly shaped.

It is also unique in being the only large moon in the solar system to circle its planet in a direction opposite to its planet's rotation — this " retrograde orbit " suggests that Triton may once have been a dwarf planet that Neptune captured rather than forming in place, according to NASA. Neptune's gravity is dragging Triton closer to the planet, meaning that millions of years from now, Triton will come close enough for gravitational forces to rip it apart. Triton is extremely cold, with temperatures on its surface reaching about minus 391 degrees F (minus 235 degrees C), making it one of the coldest places in the solar system. Nevertheless, Voyager 2 detected geysers spewing icy matter upward more than 5 miles (8 km), showing its interior appears warm. Scientists are investigating the possibility of a subsurface ocean on the icy moon. In 2010, seasons were discovered on Triton. In 2013, scientists working with SETI caught sight of Neptune's "lost" moon of Naiad using data from the Hubble Space Telescope.The 62-mile-wide (100 km) moon has remained unseen since Voyager 2 discovered it in 1989.

Also in 2013, scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope found the 14th moon, dubbed S/2004 N 1. It is Neptune's smallest moon and is just 11 miles (18 km) wide. It got its temporary name because it is the first satellite (S) of Neptune (N) to be found from images taken in 2004, according to NASA . The rings of Neptune Neptune's unusual rings are not uniform, but possess bright thick clumps of dust called arcs. The rings are thought to be relatively young and short-lived . Earth-based observations announced in 2005 found that Neptune's rings are apparently far more unstable than previously thought, with some dwindling away rapidly, according to an article in the journal Icarus . Research & exploration NASA's Voyager 2 satellite was the first and as yet only spacecraft to visit Neptune on Aug. 25, 1989. The satellite discovered Neptune's rings and six of the planet's moons — Despina, Galatea, Larissa, Naiad, Proteus and Thalassa.

An international team of astronomers relying on ground telescopes announced the discovery of five new moons orbiting Neptune in 2003. Formation of Neptune Neptune is generally thought to have formed with the initial buildup of a solid core followed by the capture of surrounding hydrogen and helium gas in the nebula surrounding the early sun. In this model, proto-Neptune formed over the course of 1 to 10 million years. Additional reporting by Nola Taylor Redd, Space.com Contributor Additional resources Planet Earth, Planet Earth Information, Facts, News, Photos -- National Geographic This requires the latest version of Flash Player. Click here to download. Earth, our home planet, is the only planet in our solar system known to harbor life. All of the things we need to survive are provided under a thin layer of atmosphere that separates us from the uninhabitable void of space. Earth is made up of complex, interactive systems that are often unpredictable. Air, water, land, and life—including humans—combine forces to create a constantly changing world that we are striving to understand. Viewing Earth from the unique perspective of space provides the opportunity to see Earth as a whole. Scientists around the world have discovered many things about our planet by working together and sharing their findings.

Some facts are well known. For instance, Earth is the third planet from the sun and the fifth largest in the solar system. Earth's diameter is just a few hundred kilometers larger than that of Venus. The four seasons are a result of Earth's axis of rotation being tilted more than 23 degrees. Oceans at least 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) deep cover nearly 70 percent of Earth's surface. Fresh water exists in the liquid phase only within a narrow temperature span (32 to 212 degrees Fahrenheit/ 0 to 100 degrees Celsius). This temperature span is especially narrow when contrasted with the full range of temperatures found within the solar system. The presence and distribution of water vapor in the atmosphere is responsible for much of Earth's weather. Protective Atmosphere Near the surface, an ocean of air that consists of 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen, and 1 percent other ingredients envelops us. This atmosphere affects Earth's long-term climate and short-term local weather; shields us from nearly all harmful radiation coming from the sun; and protects us from meteors as well. Satellites have revealed that the upper atmosphere actually swells by day and contracts by night due to solar activity.

Our planet's rapid spin and molten nickel-iron core give rise to a magnetic field, which the solar wind distorts into a teardrop shape. The solar wind is a stream of charged particles continuously ejected from the sun. The magnetic field does not fade off into space, but has definite boundaries. When charged particles from the solar wind become trapped in Earth's magnetic field, they collide with air molecules above our planet's magnetic poles. These air molecules then begin to glow and are known as the aurorae, or the Northern and Southern Lights. —Text courtesy NASA/JPL Solar System Planets: Order of the 8 (or 9) Planets Solar System Planets: Order of the 8 (or 9) Planets By Robert Roy Britt | January 22, 2016 12:35pm ET MORE The planets of the solar system as depicted by a NASA computer illustration. Orbits and sizes are not shown to scale. Credit: NASA Ever since the discovery of Pluto in 1930, kids grew up learning about the nine planets of our solar system. That all changed starting in the late 1990s, when astronomers began to argue about whether Pluto was a planet.

In a highly controversial decision , the International Astronomical Union ultimately decided in 2006 to call Pluto a “dwarf planet,” reducing the list of “real planets” in our solar system to eight. However, astronomers are now hunting for another planet in our solar system, a true ninth planet , after evidence of its existence was unveiled on Jan. 20, 2016. The so-called "Planet Nine," as scientists are calling it, is about 10 times the mass of Earth and 5,000 times the mass of Pluto. [ Solar System Pictures: A Photo Tour ] If you insist on including Pluto , then that world would come after Neptune on the list; Pluto is truly way out there, and on a wildly tilted, elliptical orbit (two of the several reasons it got demoted). Interestingly, Pluto used to be the eighth planet, actually. More on that below. Terrestrial planets The inner four worlds are called “ terrestrial planets ,” because, like Earth, their surfaces are all rocky. Pluto, too, has a solid surface (and a very frozen one) but has never been grouped with the four terrestrials.

Jovian planets The four large outer worlds — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune — are known as the “Jovian planets” (meaning “Jupiter-like”) because they are all huge compared to the terrestrial planets, and because they are gaseous in nature rather than having rocky surfaces (though some or all of them may have solid cores, astronomers say). According to NASA , "two of the outer planets beyond the orbit of Mars — Jupiter and Saturn — are known as gas giants; the more distant Uranus and Neptune are called ice giants." This is because, while the first two are dominated by gas, while the last two have more ice. All four contain mostly hydrogen and helium. Dwarf planets The IAU definition of a full-fledged planet goes like this: A body that circles the sun without being some other object's satellite, is large enough to be rounded by its own gravity (but not so big that it begins to undergo nuclear fusion, like a star) and has "cleared its neighborhood" of most other orbiting bodies. Yeah, that’s a mouthful.

The problem for Pluto, besides its small size and offbeat orbit, is that it shares its space with lots of other objects in the Kuiper Belt , beyond Neptune. Still, the demotion of Pluto remains controversial . The IAU planet definition puts other small, round worlds in the dwarf planet category, including the Kuiper Belt objects Eris , Haumea , and Makemake . Also now a dwarf planet is Ceres , a round object in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. Ceres was actually considered a planet when discovered in 1801 and then later deemed to be an asteroid. Some astronomers like to consider Ceres as a 10th planet (not to be confused with Nibiru or Planet X ), but that line of thinking opens up the possibility of there being 13 planets, with more bound to be discovered. The planets Below is a brief overview of the eight primary planets in our solar system , in order from the inner solar system outward: Mercury The closest planet to the sun, Mercury is only a bit larger than Earth's moon.

Its day side is scorched by the sun and can reach 840 degrees Fahrenheit (450 Celsius), but on the night side, temperatures drop to hundreds of degrees below freezing. Mercury has virtually no atmosphere to absorb meteor impacts, so its surface is pockmarked with craters, just like the moon. Over its four-year mission, NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft has revealed views of the planet that have challenged astronomers' expectations. Discovery: Known to the ancients and visible to the naked eye Named for: Messenger of the Roman gods Diameter: 3,031 miles (4,878 km) Orbit: 88 Earth days Venus' southern hemisphere, as seen in the ultraviolet. Credit: ESA Venus The second planet from the sun, Venus is terribly hot, even hotter than Mercury. The atmosphere is toxic. The pressure at the surface would crush and kill you. Scientists describe Venus’ situation as a runaway greenhouse effect. Its size and structure are similar to Earth, Venus' thick, toxic atmosphere traps heat in a runaway "greenhouse effect." Oddly, Venus spins slowly in the opposite direction of most planets. The Greeks believed Venus was two different objects — one in the morning sky and another in the evening.

Because it is often brighter than any other object in the sky — except for the sun and moon — Venus has generated many UFO reports. Discovery: Known to the ancients and visible to the naked eye Named for: Roman goddess of love and beauty Diameter: 7,521 miles (12,104 km) Orbit: 225 Earth days An image of the Earth taken by the Russian weather satellite Elektro-L No.1. Credit: NTsOMZ Earth The third planet from the sun, Earth is a waterworld, with two-thirds of the planet covered by ocean. It’s the only world known to harbor life. Earth’s atmosphere is rich in life-sustaining nitrogen and oxygen. Earth's surface rotates about its axis at 1,532 feet per second (467 meters per second) — slightly more than 1,000 mph (1,600 kph) — at the equator. The planet zips around the sun at more than 18 miles per second (29 km per second).

Diameter: 7,926 miles (12,760 km) Orbit: 365.24 days Day: 23 hours, 56 minutes Related: Mars researchers are focusing both Earth-based and planet orbiting sensors to better understand sources of methane on the red planet. Image Credit: Space Telescope Science Institute Mars The fourth planet from the sun, is a cold, dusty place. The dust, an iron oxide, gives the planet its reddish cast. Mars shares similarities with Earth: It is rocky, has mountains and valleys, and storm systems ranging from localized tornado-like dust devils to planet-engulfing dust storms. It snows on Mars. And Mars harbors water ice. Scientists think it was once wet and warm, though today it’s cold and desert-like. Mars' atmosphere is too thin for liquid water to exist on the surface for any length of time. Scientists think ancient Mars would have had the conditions to support life, and there is hope that signs of past life — possibly even present biology — may exist on the Red Planet.

Discovery: Known to the ancients and visible to the naked eye Named for: Roman god of war Diameter: 4,217 miles (6,787 km) Orbit: 687 Earth days Day: Just more than one Earth day (24 hours, 37 minutes) Related: Close-up of Jupiter's Great Red Spot as seen by a Voyager spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Jupiter The fifth planet from the sun, Jupiter is huge and is the most massive planet in our solar system. It’s a mostly gaseous world, mostly hydrogen and helium. Its swirling clouds are colorful due to different types of trace gases. A big feature is the Great Red Spot, a giant storm which has raged for hundreds of years. Jupiter has a strong magnetic field, and with dozens of moons, it looks a bit like a miniature solar system.

Discovery: Known to the ancients and visible to the naked eye Named for: Ruler of the Roman gods Diameter: 86,881 miles (139,822 km) Orbit: 11.9 Earth years The shadow of Saturn's moon Mimas dips onto the planet's rings and straddles the Cassini Division in this natural color image taken as Saturn approaches its August 2009 equinox. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute Saturn The sixth planet from the sun is known most for its rings . When Galileo Galilei first studied Saturn in the early 1600s, he thought it was an object with three parts. Not knowing he was seeing a planet with rings, the stumped astronomer entered a small drawing — a symbol with one large circle and two smaller ones — in his notebook, as a noun in a sentence describing his discovery. More than 40 years later, Christiaan Huygens proposed that they were rings. The rings are made of ice and rock. Scientists are not yet sure how they formed. The gaseous planet is mostly hydrogen and helium. It has numerous moons .

Discovery: Known to the ancients and visible to the naked eye Named for: Roman god of agriculture Diameter: 74,900 miles (120,500 km) Orbit: 29.5 Earth years Day: About 10.5 Earth hours Related: Near-infrared views of Uranus reveal its otherwise faint ring system, highlighting the extent to which the planet is tilted. Credit: Lawrence Sromovsky, (Univ. Wisconsin-Madison), Keck Observatory Uranus The seventh planet from the sun, Uranus is an oddball. It’s the only giant planet whose equator is nearly at right angles to its orbit — it basically orbits on its side. Astronomers think the planet collided with some other planet-size object long ago, causing the tilt. The tilt causes extreme seasons that last 20-plus years, and the sun beats down on one pole or the other for 84 Earth-years. Uranus is about the same size as Neptune. Methane in the atmosphere gives Uranus its blue-green tint. It has numerous moons and faint rings.

Discovery: 1781 by William Herschel (was thought previously to be a star) Named for: Personification of heaven in ancient myth Diameter: 31,763 miles (51,120 km) Orbit: 84 Earth years Neptune’s winds travel at more than 1,500 mph, and are the fastest planetary winds in the solar system. Credit: NASA/JPL Neptune The eighth planet from the sun, Neptune is known for strong winds — sometimes faster than the speed of sound. Neptune is far out and cold. The planet is more than 30 times as far from the sun as Earth. It has a rocky core. Neptune was the first planet to be predicted to exist by using math, before it was detected. Irregularities in the orbit of Uranus led French astronomer Alexis Bouvard to suggest some other might be exerting a gravitational tug. German astronomer Johann Galle used calculations to help find Neptune in a telescope. Neptune is about 17 times as massive as Earth. Discovery: 1846 Pluto and its moons orbit the sun near the edge of our solar system.

Learn all about Pluto's weirdly eccentric orbit, four moons and more in this Space.com infographic . Credit: SPACE.com/Karl Tate Pluto (Dwarf Planet) Once the ninth planet from the sun, Pluto is unlike other planets in many respects. It is smaller than Earth's moon. Its orbit carries it inside the orbit of Neptune and then way out beyond that orbit. From 1979 until early 1999, Pluto had actually been the eighth planet from the sun. Then, on Feb. 11, 1999, it crossed Neptune's path and once again became the solar system's most distant planet — until it was demoted to dwarf planet status. Pluto will stay beyond Neptune for 228 years. Pluto’s orbit is tilted to the main plane of the solar system — where the other planets orbit — by 17.1 degrees. It’s a cold, rocky world with only a very ephemeral atmosphere. NASA's New Horizons mission performed history's first flyby of the Pluto system on July 14, 2015.

[Related: New Horizons' Pluto Flyby: Latest News, Images and Video ] Discovery: 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh Named for: Roman god of the underworld, Hades Diameter: 1,430 miles (2,301 km) Orbit: 248 Earth years NASA Solar System Exploration: Dwarf Planets Planet Nine Planet Nine orbits the sun at a distance that is 20 times farther out than the orbit of Neptune. (The orbit of Neptune is 2.7 billion miles from the sun at its closest point.) The strange world's orbit is about 600 times farther from the sun than the Earth's orbit is from the star. Scientists have not actually seen Planet Nine directly . Its existence was inferred by its gravitational effects on other objects in the Kuiper Belt, a region at the fringe of the solar system that is home to icy objects left over from the birth of the sun and planets. Earth | The Blue Planet | Science | Solar System | Moon | Earth Facts | Universe | Astronomy | NASA Hate 2 Earth is the only planet we know of in our solar system that humans can live on. No other planet has oceans , other life forms, and enough oxygen to comfortably breathe .

Because we have so much water, Earth is called the Blue Planet. From space the oceans combined with the atmosphere makes the planet look blue. Earth - What It's All About About 71 per cent of the Earth is covered with water. Earth is the only planet where water can exist in liquid form on the surface. Even though we have water coming out of our ears, only one percent of it is drinkable. Most of it is frozen or salty. Earth is the fifth largest planet and the third planet from the Sun with only Mercury and Venus being closer. It's about 24,920 miles around Earth at the equator . That means it would take 33,000,000 people holding hands to reach all the way around. The land on Earth is made of several plates and at one time all of these plates were joined together, making it possible to walk from one side of the Earth to the other. Plates are individual pieces that are always moving so the land keeps drifting apart slowly. Today there are seven distinct land masses known as continents.

Earth from space Mercury In Roman mythology Mercury is the god of commerce, travel and thievery, the Roman counterpart of the Greek god Hermes, the messenger of the Gods. The planet probably received this name because it moves so quickly across the sky. Mercury has been known since at least the time of the Sumerians (3rd millennium BC). The IAU changed the definition of "planet" so that Pluto no longer qualifies. There are officially only eight planets in our solar system. Of course this change in terminology does not affect what's actually out there. In the end, it's not very important how we classify the various objects in our solar system. What is important is to learn about their physical nature and their histories. Planet Order from the Sun; Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune Our knowledge of our solar system is extensive but it is far from complete. Some of the worlds have never even been photographed up close. The Nine Planets is an overview of what we know today. We are still exploring, much more is still to come: We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. -- T.

S. Eliot Astronomers have discovered a blue planet beyond our solar system Astronomers have discovered a blue planet beyond our solar system Go to permalink In a major breakthrough, researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope have seen the true color of a planet outside our solar system. HD 189733b, as the gas giant is called, is blue. A deep, vibrant, cobalt blue. And just wait til you hear why it's that color. Advertisement An international team of researchers led by Oxford astrophysicist Tom Evans deduced the planet's hue by measuring the light it reflects, a property known as albedo. To do so, the team measured fluctuations in light as it passed in front of and behind its parent star. GIF An artist's impression of HD 189733b transiting its parent star | ESA/NASA/Frédéric Pont (Geneva University Observatory) "We saw the brightness of the whole system drop in the blue part of the spectrum when the planet passed behind its star," said Evans in a statement.

"From this, we can gather that the planet is blue, because the signal remained constant at the other colors we measured." From space, HD 189773b looks a lot like our own pale blue dot . Previous research even suggests that sunsets on the planet may look a lot like those seen from here on Earth , its atmosphere tinted a hazy rouge by the last light of a sun dipping over the horizon. But unlike Earth, HD 189773b's azure hue is thought to result not from the reflection of a tropical ocean, but its alien atmosphere. Carl Sagan's lyrical and resonant ode to the planet Earth as seen from a great distance… Read more Read more GIF Evans and his team hypothesize that atmosphere contains a layer of sodium that selectively absorbs red light. But here's the real kicker: While temperatures on the planet come in at over 1,000 degrees Celsius on average, that number swings by as much as 260 degrees between day and night. It is thought that these dramatic fluctuations in temperature lead to 4,500-mile-per-hour, planet-sweeping winds.

Weirder still: those temperatures are such that silicates in its atmosphere are converted to small droplets of glass, and those droplets scatter blue light. The result, the researchers write , is a planet that would appear to the naked eye "a deep blue color at visible wavelengths." Advertisement Advertisement A gas giant with 4,500 mph winds is cool. A gas giant with 4,500 mph glass-winds is freaking awesome. And it's blue! Previous artist's renderings of HD 189773b depicted it as brown, or red. Now we know better, and with more certainty than any exoplanet that's come before. That's just incredible. "This planet has been studied well in the past, both by ourselves and other teams," said Frédéric Pont of the University of Exeter, co-author of the study and leader of the Hubble observing program. "But measuring its color is a real first." The researchers' findings will appear in the August 1 issue of the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters. In the meantime, you can access the paper here .

Sponsored Dwarf planet discovery hints at a hidden Super Earth in solar system | Science | The Guardian Dwarf planet discovery hints at a hidden Super Earth in solar system • Orbits sun at greater distance than any other known object • 2012 VP 113 may be shepherded by unseen planet • Discovery team call it VP, or 'Biden' after US vice president The orbits of Sedna (orange) and dwarf planet 2012 VP113 (red). Also shown are the orbits of the giant planets (purple). The Kuiper belt is the dotted light blue region. Illustration: Scott S Sheppard/Carnegie Institution for Science Wednesday 26 March 2014 14.00 EDT First published on Wednesday 26 March 2014 14.00 EDT Close This article is 2 years old Astronomers have increased the size of the observable solar system after spotting a 450-km wide object orbiting the sun. The lump of ice and rock circles the sun at a greater distance than any known object, and never gets closer than 12bn kilometres – 80 times the distance from Earth to the sun.

If its size is confirmed it could qualify as a dwarf planet in the same category as Pluto. Researchers said the discovery proves the existence of the inner Oort cloud, a region of icy bodies that lies far beyond the orbit of Neptune – which at 4.5bn kilometres from the sun is the most remote planet in the solar system. Until a proper name is decided upon, the body is known only as 2012 VP113. According to the science journal Nature , the team that discovered it call it VP for short, or "Biden", after US vice president Joe Biden. Its pink tinge comes from radiation damage that alters the make-up of frozen water, methane and carbon dioxide on the surface. Though exciting in its own right, the discovery raises a more tantalising prospect for many astronomers: that a "Super Earth" up to 10 times the mass of our planet orbits the sun at such a great distance that it has never been seen. Three images of the newly discovered dwarf planet 2012 VP 113 taken about two hours apart on 5 November 2012.

Photograph: Scott S Sheppard/Carnegie Institution for Science Astronomers found 2012 VP113 by taking snapshots of the night sky an hour or so apart with an instrument called the Dark Energy Camera on the US National Optical Astronomy Observatory telescope in Chile. When they turned the images into a time-lapse movie of the sky, they could see the new body moving against the background of stationary stars. "This object has the most distant orbit known," Scott Sheppard at the Carnegie Institution of Washington told the Guardian. "It extends the known boundary of the observable solar system." The object's orbit brings it as close as 12bn kilometres from the sun, and swings out as far as 67bn kilometres. There are comets that come from even farther out, but they pass much closer to our home planet. The solar system has three distinct regions. Closest to the sun are the rocky planets, such as Venus, Earth and Mars. Farther out are the gas giants, such as Saturn and Jupiter. More distant still, beyond the orbit of Neptune, is a band of icy objects called the Kuiper belt. In 2003, astronomers found an object beyond the Kuiper belt, which they called Sedna.

For more than a decade, the object was a loner, an anomaly in the solar system. But the new body, 2012 VP113, lurks in the same no-man's land of space, leading astronomers to believe there could be thousands of similar bodies waiting to be discovered there. "People wondered if Sedna was unique, and 10 years on, we have at last found another object that shows it is not. There is probably a large population of objects out there," Sheppard said. The dwarf planet (coloured dots). Three images, each taken about two hours apart, were combined into one. The first was artificially colored red, second green and third blue. The background stars and galaxies did not move and so their red, green and blue images combine to show up as white sources. Photograph: Scott S Sheppard/Carnegie Institution for Science The region of space where Sedna and 2012 VP113 were found is called the inner Oort cloud. Astronomers are unsure how this remote cloud of objects formed, but there are three competing theories. One is that a rogue planet was flung out of the early solar system and dragged the Oort cloud material with it.

Another is that the material was pulled out of the inner solar system by a passing star. The third option has the same job done by planets orbiting stars born in the same cluster as the sun. "What is exciting about this work is that we know the inner Oort cloud is there. This is the second object we know of, and it's a smoking gun," said Meg Schwamb, a planetary scientist at the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Academica Sinica in Taiwan. By studying the objects, astronomers hope to confirm how the inner Oort cloud formed. Sheppard found the new object, reported in Nature , with fellow astronomer, Chad Trujillo , who works at the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii. Trujillo was a co-discoverer of Sedna in 2003. The latest work has already thrown up an intriguing possibility. The angle of the body's orbit and that of Sedna's are strikingly similar, an effect most likely caused by the gravitational tug of another, unseen body. One possibility is a "Super Earth" that traces so large an orbit around the sun that it has never been seen.

"If you took a Super Earth and put it a few hundred astronomical units out, the gravity could shepherd Sedna and this new object into the orbits they have," said Sheppard. An astronomical unit (AU) is around 150m kilometres, or the mean distance from Earth to the sun. Earlier this month, Nasa's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (Wise) reported the results from its search for "Planet X", a hypothesised planet far out in the solar system. It found no evidence for a new planet larger than Saturn within 10,000 AU of the sun. But Saturn is 95 times more massive than Earth, so a smaller Super Earth could go undetected in that region.

In a neat demonstration of E=mc2, physicists believe they can create electrons and positrons from colliding photons Published: 18 May 2014 DNA from London Black Death skeletons matches modern plague bacteria and supports airborne theory of spread Published: 29 Mar 2014 The Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize 2014, in association with the Guardian and Observer, is open for entries Published: 28 Mar 2014 The fossilised bones of one of the largest dinosaurs ever to have roamed the earth go on display at a museum in Trelew, Argentina Published: 19 May 2014 StarChild: The Planets and Dwarf Planets The Planets and Dwarf Planets Listen to an audio version of this page. Sorry, your browser does not support the audio element, please consider updating. A planet is a large space object which revolves around a star. It also reflects that star's light. Eight planets have been discovered in our solar system. Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars are the planets closest to the Sun. They are called the inner planets. The inner planets are made up mostly of rock. The outer planets are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are large balls of gases with rings around them. All eight planets travel around the Sun in a different orbit . In its orbit, there are not many other objects like the planet. Dwarf planets are objects that are similar to planets except that they orbit the Sun in areas where there are many similar objects. The Inner Planets Astronomers find blue planet outside solar system Astronomers find blue planet outside solar system JAMES BROOKS Pin it Share In this undated illustration provided by the European Space Agency (ESA), an artists impression of one of Earth's nearest planets outside the solar system named HD 189733B. Astronomers said Friday, July 12, 2013 that for the first time they had gained an understanding of HD 189733B, which is around 63 light years away by discovering the huge gas giant’s blue color. To ascertain the planet’s color the astronomers measured the amount of light reflected of its surface as it eclipsed its host star. (AP Photo/ESA-Hubble, M.

Kornmesser) More LONDON (AP) — Astronomers have for the first time managed to determine the color of a planet outside our solar system, a blue gas giant 63 light-years away. Using the Hubble Space Telescope, an international team said the planet known as HD 189733B would look like a deep blue dot if viewed up close. "Measuring the planet's color is a real first — we have never managed it before with a planet outside our own solar system," Frederic Pont of the University of Exeter in England said Friday. While Earth looks blue from space because of its oceans, the astronomers said the planet's color was created by a hazy turbulent atmosphere of silicate particles that scatter blue light. To determine the planet's color, the team measured the amount of light reflected off its surface as it passed behind its star. Discovered in 2005, the planet belongs to a class of giant gas planets called "hot Jupiters" that orbit close to their stars.

It has a daytime temperature of around 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,832 F), and the heat causes rocks to evaporate and glass to possibly rain sideways in howling 4,500 mph (about 7,250 kph) winds. Astronomers chose the planet for observation because of its proximity to Earth and size in relation to the star it orbits. A light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles. Pont said the technology the astronomers used pushed the Hubble telescope to its limit given the distance and light from other stars obscuring their view. "People keep coming up with a better way of viewing planets indirectly so I'm sure the technology will eventually improve," Pont said. Reblog

Question: Which planet in our solar system is known as ‘The Blue Planet’?
Answer: Earth