The Rings of Neptune

The sublime vista below is a composite image taken by Voyager 2 in 1989. Although not as bright and large as Saturn's rings, Neptune actually has six rings. I can make out three of them:



Full Resolution

Link

At the 3 o'clock position you can see Neptune's largest moon, Triton. An extremely cold moon, it has liquid nitrogen geysers.



Link

After taking these images, Voyager 2 headed for interstellar space.

a reply to: ionwind

It looks like the moon Triton is quite close to the planet, much closer than I've imagined it. Thanks!

a reply to: ionwind

They look so cold and harsh. If you hadn't told us those were photos I'd have assumed they were digital simulations.

originally posted by: Asynchrony
a reply to: ionwind

They look so cold and harsh. If you hadn't told us those were photos I'd have assumed they were digital simulations.

Neptune is the farthest planet from our sun. Pluto is not a planet and even then Neptune is sometimes farther because of their orbits.

The image is a composite of many images put together by the astrophotographer Rolf Olsen.

You can read more about how he did it here:

Rolf Olsen.

a reply to: Aleister

Keep in mind how large Neptune is, Triton may appear close to Neptune at this angle. How ever, Triton is about 1/5th the size of the Earth(21%earths size). Neptune is 14.98 Earths.... That's freaking huge compared to that little moon there.

Perspective is everything.

Wonderful image of Neptune with it's rings.

Thanks for sharing!