1. Goal: To compare Neptune to its neighbor Uranus Objectives: 1)To learn about its Atmosphere 2)To explore its Core 3)To learn about its Moons If time left: How the formation of the solar system affected the orbits of the gas giants.

2. Voyager 2

3. Springtime on Neptune

4. Neptune in 3 D

5. Atmospheric make up Molecular hydrogen (H2) - 80.0% (3.2%) Helium (He) - 19.0% (3.2%) Methane (CH4) 1.5% (0.5%) (Uranus was 2.3%) Hydrogen Deuteride (HD) – 192 Ethane (C2H6) - 1.5 Aerosols: Ammonia ice, water ice, ammonia hydrosulfide, methane ice(?)

6. Neptune winds With little turbulence to dampen winds, the winds on the equator get as high as 1200 miles per hour. Neptune also emits twice as much energy in the infrared that the energy in the optical it gets from the sun. So, that means Neptune rains diamonds towards the core to generate heat!

7. Core

8. Rings

9. Moons Neptune has 13 known moons. Very few have images which are any good. Only one is large, Triton. Two are about 400 km in diameter. Rest are much smaller.

10. Proteus Very dark (reflects about 7% of sunlight). 120,000 km from Neptune Outer most of Neptune’s probable original moons. 5 moons inside of Proteus’s orbit. Nearest to Neptune is Naiad which is at 48k km from Neptune (29 km in diameter).

11. Triton

12. interesting

13. Triton up close! http://www.space.com/common/media/vid eo/player.php?videoRef=SP_090902_trito n

14. Triton is a captured TNO! TNO = Trans-Neptunian Object (an object like Pluto). Diameter 2700 km, which is a little smaller than our moon. About 10% closer to Neptune than our moon is from us. Its orbit is retrograde! This is a backwards orbit, which can only be if it was captured. However, this has some other implications…

15. Triton’s impact on Neptune Retrograde orbit means that tidal interactions with Neptune bring it CLOSER to Neptune! This means it was once further out, and probably tossed all of Neptune’s original moons which started further out that its current position away from Neptune. Eventually it will do the same to all the inner moons. Is probably the reason the outer moons have some very high eccentricities.

16. The death of Triton In a billion years (maybe less) Triton will get close enough to Neptune for Neptune to rip it apart. This will create a spectacular ring system around Neptune – even dwarfing the Saturn ring system. Until then, we still get to see fireworks as the volcanism on Triton caused by the Tides of Neptune continue to increase.

17. Conclusion: Neptune is similar to Uranus in many ways, the real difference being the moons because of the chaos the captured moon Triton has caused on the Neptune moon system.