As Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist at New York’s Hayden Planetarium and Pluto-killer, reminded us on Twitter, it is Neptune’s birthday. Just today, Neptune has made exactly one complete orbit since its discovery in 1865. Neptune was the first heavenly body discovered as a result of mathematics.
Thanks to our old chum, social media, we can see and listen to planets we will never individually visit, in all likelihood. So check out a lovely video of the ice giant and a ridiculously evocative sound recording made by the probe Voyager. (Before it turned into V’ger and the Enterprise had to talk it down. It’s called science, people.)
Voyager footage of Neptune
SixtySymbols on Neptune (read ReadWriteWeb coverage of SixtySymbols)
Sounds of Neptune: the end of this freaked me out of my skivvies
Neptune photo by Michael Swigart | thanks to Dana Huff
