---
title: "Neptune: facts, distance and size – Krillion Space"
description: "Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun, a dark, cold ice giant with the fastest winds measured in the solar system."
url: https://krilion.app/atlas/neptune
language: en-US
---

# Neptune

Ice giant. Depth 11 on the Krillion Space voyage, in the Outer Sol.

Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun, a dark, cold ice giant with the fastest winds measured in the solar system. It was the first planet located through mathematical prediction rather than by scanning the sky.

![Neptune at depth 11 in Krillion Space, painted by the game (an illustration, not a photograph).](https://krilion.app/assets/atlas/neptune.webp)

## Fact sheet

- **Type:** Ice giant planet
- **Distance:** About 4.5 billion km (2.8 billion miles), or 30 AU, from the Sun on average
- **Size:** Equatorial diameter about 49,528 km (30,775 miles), about four times as wide as Earth
- **Discovered:** Discovered 23 September 1846 by Johann Galle, using Urbain Le Verrier's prediction
- **On the voyage:** Depth 11, in the Outer Sol section of the route, between Uranus and Triton

## Things to know

- Urbain Le Verrier predicted Neptune's position from wobbles in Uranus's orbit, and Johann Galle found it in 1846 on his first night of searching. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/neptune/facts/))
- Winds on Neptune top 2,000 km/h (1,200 mph), about three times faster than Jupiter's strongest winds. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/neptune/facts/))
- One orbit of the Sun takes about 165 Earth years, so each of Neptune's four seasons lasts more than 40 years. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/neptune/facts/))
- Voyager 2 came within about 4,800 km (2,980 miles) of Neptune's cloud tops in 1989, the closest of its four planetary flybys. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/voyager-2/))
- A storm called the Great Dark Spot, big enough to hold Earth, was seen in 1989 but has since vanished while new storms have appeared. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/neptune/facts/))

## Missions

Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have visited Neptune, flying past on 25 August 1989.

## Sources

- [NASA – Neptune Facts](https://science.nasa.gov/neptune/facts/)
- [NSSDC – Neptune Fact Sheet](https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/neptunefact.html)
- [NASA – Voyager 2](https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/voyager-2/)

## On the route

- Previous landmark: [Uranus](https://krilion.app/atlas/uranus)
- Next landmark: [Triton](https://krilion.app/atlas/triton)
- [The whole Star Atlas](https://krilion.app/atlas)
- [Fly the voyage yourself](https://krilion.app/d/): every right answer warps your ship one stop deeper.