Neptune

Capture

Seestar s50 Pro 87 stacks

Date

7 October 2026

Location

Camden, NSW

Original

1714 × 2924 px

Neptune is the eighth and most distant planet from the Sun, about 4.5 billion km away. Sunlight takes around four hours to reach it. It is an “ice giant” about four times wider than Earth and 17 times its mass. Methane in its atmosphere gives it its deep blue colour. At the tops of its clouds the temperature is about −200 °C, making it one of the coldest places in the Solar System. Even so, Neptune gives off more than twice as much heat as it receives from the Sun, warmth left over from when it formed. Neptune has the fastest winds in the Solar System, over 2,000 km/h, and takes about 165 years to orbit the Sun once. It was the first planet found by mathematics rather than by searching the sky, in 1846 astronomers predicted where it should be from the way it tugged on Uranus, and Johann Galle found it within a degree of that spot. Its largest moon, Triton, orbits backwards, which suggests it was captured from the Kuiper Belt. Neptune is too faint to see without binoculars or a telescope. Apparent magnitude 7.8.

See it in the planets gallery