PLANET'S

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What is Neptune like?

Neptune is dark, cold, and very windy. It's the last of the planets in our solar system. It's more than 30 times as far from the sun as Earth is. Neptune is very similar to Uranus. It's made of a thick soup of water, ammonia, and methane over an Earth-sized solid center. Its atmosphere is made of hydrogen, helium, and methane. The methane gives Neptune the same blue color as Uranus. Neptune has six rings, but they're very hard to see.

What does Neptune look like?

Voyager 2 took this picture of Neptune in 1989.

Clouds streak across Neptune.

Neptune is a very cold, windy world.

What is Uranus like?

Uranus is made of water, methane, and ammonia fluids above a small rocky center. Its atmosphere is made of hydrogen and helium like Jupiter and Saturn, but it also has methane. The methane makes Uranus blue.

Uranus also has faint rings. The inner rings are narrow and dark. The outer rings are brightly colored and easier to see. Like Venus, Uranus rotates in the opposite direction as most other planets. And unlike any other planet, Uranus rotates on its side.

What does Uranus look like?

This picture shows Uranus surrounded by its four major rings and by 10 of its moons. This image has colors added to show the different altitudes and thicknesses of clouds in the atmosphere.

Green and blue areas show where the atmosphere is clear and sunlight can get through. The yellow and grey parts have thicker clouds. Orange and red colors mean very high clouds, similar to cirrus clouds on Earth.

The Hubble Space Telescope took this picture of Uranus. You can see bands and a dark spot in Uranus' atmosphere.

What is Saturn like?

Saturn isn’t the only planet to have rings, but it definitely has the most beautiful ones. The rings we see are made of groups of tiny ringlets that surround Saturn. They’re made of chunks of ice and rock. Like Jupiter, Saturn is mostly a ball of hydrogen and helium.

When Galileo Galilei saw Saturn through a telescope in the 1600s, he wasn't sure what he was seeing. At first he thought he was looking at three planets, or a planet with handles. Now we know those "handles" turned out to be the rings of Saturn.

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What does Saturn look like?

A close up view of Saturn's rings. They are grey and tan, and there are spaces in between where you can see the black color of space through them.

The Cassini spacecraft took this picture of Saturn's rings. You can see the grey and tan colors.

A photo of Saturn with its rings at an angle pointing upwards. Next to Saturn are two white dots, which are moons.

This is a picture of Saturn and its moons Tethys and Dione. Voyager 1 took this picture as it passed by.

A photo of Saturn where it is backlit by the sun. Saturn and its rings are nearly black, and the sun is making the edges glow.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft went behind Saturn and took this picture in 2013. You can see seven of its moons and its inner rings. In the background you can also see Earth.

A photo of Saturn looking down on it, showing its rings clearly. The shadow of Saturn falls on the left side of the rings.

A portrait looking down on Saturn and its rings. This picture was made from images taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft in 2013. It was put together by amateur image processor and Cassini fan Gordan Ugarkovic.

What is Jupiter like?

Jupiter is the biggest planet in our solar system. It's similar to a star, but it never got big enough to start burning. It is covered in swirling cloud stripes. It has big storms like the Great Red Spot, which has been going for hundreds of years. Jupiter is a gas giant and doesn't have a solid surface, but it may have a solid inner core about the size of Earth. Jupiter also has rings, but they're too faint to see very well.

What does Jupiter look like?

Here you can see Jupiter and one of its many moons, Ganymede.

This picture is actually four pictures taken by Cassini put together. The dark spot on the left is the shadow from Jupiter's moon Europa.

This picture taken by Voyager 2 shows the Great Red Spot.


Source: Nasa

For more information visit solarsystem.nasa.gov.