Studying Neptune: Investigating the Unknown

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the investigation of Neptune for a project, focusing on identifying scientific objectives and potential areas of study related to the planet. Participants explore various aspects of Neptune, including its atmospheric phenomena, composition, and historical context, while considering the limitations of satellite-based observations.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Homework-related

Main Points Raised

  • One participant expresses difficulty in identifying important scientific objectives for studying Neptune, particularly regarding the dark spot and potential windspeed measurements from satellites.
  • Another participant suggests considering various measurement aspects such as infrared data, magnetosphere, atmospheric composition, and topography.
  • A third participant highlights the limited exploration of Neptune, noting that Voyager 2 is the only space probe that has visited the planet, which influences what is known about it.
  • Participants propose different approaches to the investigation, such as designing a new space probe or utilizing existing data from Voyager 2 and Hubble Space Telescope images to deepen understanding of Neptune.
  • One participant recommends starting with general knowledge about Neptune, including its name origin and moon count, and suggests discussing the implications of its gaseous nature for habitability.
  • Another participant mentions the historical context of Neptune's perturbations and their relation to the discovery of Pluto, indicating interest in the causes of these perturbations.
  • A participant shares a resource link for further learning about Neptune.
  • One participant thanks others for their help and indicates that their project went smoothly.
  • A later reply requests the participant to share their scientific objectives for the project.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express a range of ideas and suggestions for studying Neptune, but there is no consensus on specific scientific objectives or methodologies. Multiple competing views remain regarding the focus of the investigation.

Contextual Notes

Participants acknowledge the limitations of current knowledge about Neptune due to the lack of extensive exploration and the reliance on satellite data. There are unresolved questions about the feasibility of certain measurements and the implications of findings.

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i am doing a project on neptune. a main constituent of this project is deciding what you want to investigate (scientific objectives) about neptune (multiple things can/should be studied). i seem to be having trouble with this. i can't think of much to study because i don't really know what's important to study about a not too well know planet. what has been studied before? i want to do something with the dark spot (i think its a storm), perhaps measure windspeed or something but I'm not sure i can do this from a satellite (everything has to be studied by satellite). i would really appreciate any insight and help anyone can offer. thank you very much in advance
 
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this is kind of a pressing matter and i don't know where to start because there are so many different things to measure (infrared, magnetosphere, make up, plasma something, is topography possible for neptune?). i really need help. if you just discovered a planet, what would you want to know about it?
 
Hope this isn't too late ...

What's known about a planet in our solar system depends rather a great deal on which spaceprobes have visited (or landed on) the planet (or not, in the case of Pluto ... assuming for now that you call it a planet). Neptune has been so visited by only one - Voyager 2.

You could go about your investigation from several different perspectives - e.g. you are designing a new spaceprobe to be sent to Neptune, so what would you want to study? or you looking to understand something about neptune better using the data gathered by Voyager 2 + Hubble Space Telescope images (etc). And so on.

In any case, what you want to do will likely be related to understanding something about the planet (e.g. nature of the Dark Spot, strength of the magnetic field, variation in the composition of the atmosphere by height), not just an observation for its own sake (e.g. 'I wonder what Neptune looks like if I take a picture of it in the light of triply-ionised rhenium?')
 
I must apologise for not spotting this. I do not normally wonder into the Astronomy & Cosmology Forum much.

Most of what we know about Neptune has come from satellite information (whether it was from the first satellite to it, as Nereid said, or simple spectroscopy to determine what its atmosphere was made of). This simple means that you can write about anything you want to about Neptune (more or less).

If I were doing this project I would start with some facts about the planet (nothing detailed or too technique, just some general knowledge about the planet: e.g. where its name came from and how many moons it has). Then, I think, I would try and give a presentation on why we cannot live there. The obvious problem is that Neptune is made of gas but make it interesting, e.g. what if Neptune's atmosphere replaced the Earth's etc. This topic line will not only allow you to mention windspeed and the Dark Spot but also what the atmosphere is made of and about the problem it can encounter with meteors and the temperature of the planet. None of this information could come from anything other than satellites (either near the planet or in the orbit of Earth).

Hope that might help :smile:

The Bob (2004 ©)
 
You might be interested in current thinking about the perturbations of Neptune that led to the discovery of Pluto. They certainly were not due to Pluto, which is smaller than Earth's moon. Pluto would need to be several times more massive than the Earth (and was believed to be for many years) to cause the perturbations the founder of the Flagstaff AZ observatory (Percival Lowell) used to predict Pluto's location.

I would be interested in what is thought now to have been the cause of these "observed perturbations" Please let me know at local_black_hole@Yahoo.com if you follow up on this or want more information.
 
an excellent place to begin learning about what is known and what is not...
http://www.seds.org/billa/tnp/neptune.html
 
Last edited by a moderator:
thank you very much for your help. its all over and done with now. seemed to go smoothly. thank you again for the advice
 
So, without giving too much away, would you mind sharing with us what scientific objectives you wrote for your project?
 

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