Title: The contrivance of Neptune Author: Davor Krajnovic
Celebrating 170th anniversary of the discovery of Neptune, I review the story of the discovery that startled the world. The story is an interplay of scientific triumph and human weakness and an example of how science works in a socio-political context.
Galileo Galilei's drawings show that he first observed Neptune on December 28, 1612, and again on January 27, 1613. On both occasions, Galileo mistook Neptune for a fixed star when it appeared very close - in conjunction - to Jupiter in the night sky; hence, he is not credited with Neptune's discovery. Read more
Image of Neptune taken with the Keck II Telescope adaptive optics system in infra-red light (wavelength 1.65 microns), on June 27, 1999.
A prominent storm system can be seen on the lower right of Neptune's disk. Haze can be seen over the North Polar regions (top). The spatial resolution achieved corresponds to 250 miles on Neptune, which is at a distance of 2.8 billion miles from Earth. This image and the following one use shades of orange to represent the intensity of infra-red light.