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Neptune Main
Location and Orbit
The Atmosphere and
Magnetosphere
The Surface
Interior and Physical Structure
Moons and Rings
Missions to Neptune
History and Timeline
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Quiz
Neptune: The Surface
Neptune, as a great gas giant, has no surface, in a conventional sense. It is a fluid object—the light elements that compose it do not condense in the frigidity of space. Rather than an explicit separation between the planet’s surface and the surrounding atmosphere, Neptune’s surface is its atmosphere, slowly bleeding off into the void of space. Astronomers consider Neptune to be where the atmospheric pressure exceeds one bar; the remainder is “adjacent materia.” Though Neptune does not have a surface per se, the parts of it farthest from the core host great 2,000 km/h winds, the fastest known to man.
Landmarks and Notable Sights
Neptune was originally thought to be too cold to support
atmospheric disturbances, such as large-scale storms. The Great Dark Spot, a massive vortex, disproved that, however. It is half the size of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot and has a diameter equal to Earth’s. The winds on Neptune blow the spot westward at 300 m/s. The Hubble Space Telescope observed this imposing formation until, in 1994, it disappeared! Scientists believe that the disturbance is either dissipated or covered.Voyager 2 also discovered a small dark spot in the southern hemisphere and a small white cloud “The Scooter” that circumnavigates Neptune every 16 hours. Scooter, which may be a plume, remains another mystery of the Neptunian atmosphere.