On Sept. 23, 1846, Johann Gottfried Galle discovered Neptune using a series of mathematical equations.
The planet isn’t visible from Earth without a telescope, so Galle and other scientists had to employ slightly different techniques. They observed the anomalies of Uranus’ orbit and used that information to predict the location of Neptune. Scientists quickly discovered a moon around Neptune, which they later named Triton, but it took them more than a century to find a second. Today, the blue planet has 16 known moons.
We gained a significant amount of information on the planet when Voyager 2 performed a flyby in 1989. The team at NASA managing the project observed an additional five moons, as well as confirmed the presence of dark rings surrounding the celestial body. There are at least five main rings composed mostly of dust and debris. Not one spacecraft has visited Neptune since Voyager 2.
Originally observed as a star by Galileo, the planet is more than 2.7 billion kilometers from the sun, making it the most distant planet in our solar system and most recently discovered. The ice giant continues to fascinate astronomers and physicists to this day.
This information was gathered from science.nasa.gov.
