Friday, December 23, 2011

Solar System: Neptune

And I'm done! I'll include a photo of the assembled mobile after Christmas when I hang it up. Neptune was frustrating at first to paint, but then I did some crazy stuff. I did a wash of blue on it, which I started to not like while it was still wet, so I dunked it in my rinse water. After adding some whooshing clouds (technical term) it ended up pretty good I think. Not bad for averaging under an hour of painting time per planet.
  • Neptune, like Uranus, has only been visited by one spacecraft: Voyager 2 in 1989.
  • Neptune was discovered in 1846.
  • Even though you couldn't stand on the surface of Neptune (since it's a gas giant), if you could you would experience nearly identical gravity as on Earth.
  • Neptune's planet Triton was probably a captured satellite, inferred by it's retrograde orbit.
  • The winds on Neptune can reach a ridiculous 2,100 km/hr.
References:
The Nine Planets
Universe Today

1 comment:

Rob said...

Awesome.
Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas. :-)