Neptune
© NASA/JP
A distant ice giant
Official confirmation of Neptune's presence came on 23 September 1846. But the discovery inspired a dust-up in the international astronomy community, as scientists from both Britain and France claimed they had been the first to see the eighth and most-distant planet in the Solar System. Eventually peace was brokered, and credit is now shared between the two factions. But those 19th-century astronomers were using coordinates first recorded by Galileo in 1612. The Italian polymath had correctly mapped Neptune's position more than 200 years earlier using a less-powerful telescope. Galileo mistook Neptune for a star – but his coordinates helped point the stargazers who followed him in the right direction to spot and identify Neptune.
Related Images
Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635)
Pluto's crescent imaged by Nasa's New Horizons interplanetary space probe
Solar eclipse sequence from 21 August 2017
Night sky over Malham, North Yorkshire
The Large Magellanic Cloud, photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope
The Villarrica volcano in Chile on 2 September, 2018
Climbing Athabasca Glacier in Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada, as the Aurora Borealis glows
Moons of Jupiter - Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto
Bing Today Images
Keel-billed toucan in Costa Rica
Sep 23, 2025
Sea otter, Prince William Sound, Alaska, USA
Sep 23, 2024
A rabbit building a nest
Sep 23, 2017
