Neptune’s 165-year-long Orbit

Neptune's Anniversary Portraits

Today, Neptune has arrived at the same location in space where it was discovered nearly 165 years ago. To commemorate the event, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken these "anniversary pictures" of the blue-green giant planet. Neptune is the most distant major planet in our...

Neptune: 20:04 UT (June 25, 2011)

Neptune: 23:09 UT (June 25, 2011)

Neptune: 04:00 UT (June 26, 2011)

Neptune: 07:20 UT (June 26, 2011)

Compass and Scale Image of Neptune

Inner Moons of Neptune

This illustration was composed from numerous separate Hubble Wide Field Camera 3 images. A color image composed of exposures made through three color filters shows the disk of Neptune, revealing clouds in its atmosphere. Forty-eight individual images from a single filter were...

Sky & Telescope: Path of Neptune in 2011

Neptune's position in the sky is plotted on this star map, along with the 1846 predicted positions of its location, and where it was eventually discovered. The blue planet resides in the constellation Aquarius for the rest of 2011. The apparent change of direction of Neptune's...

Hubble Observes Changes in Neptune's Atmosphere

Our solar system's most distant major planet, Neptune, has arrived at the same location in space where it was first discovered 165 years ago. To commemorate the event, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken images of the blue-green giant planet. Neptune was first discovered 165...

Hubble Observes Changes in Neptune's Atmosphere (Annotated)

Our solar system's most distant major planet, Neptune, has arrived at the same location in space where it was first discovered 165 years ago. To commemorate the event, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken images of the blue-green giant planet. Neptune was first discovered 165...

Neptune's 165-year-long Orbit (with music)

While Neptune slogged around the Sun over the last 165 years, a lot has happened on Earth in that span of time. This video chronicles some of the major events that occurred on this planet during a single Neptune orbit.