In many ways, Neptune (the 8th planet) and Uranus (the7th planet) are considered twins. They are nearly identical in size and structure. Neptune is 17times the mass of earth while Uranus is about 15. While at first glance, Neptune and Uranus appear to be smaller versions of Saturn and Uranus, they are poles apart from their giant gas neighbors. These two planets are very distant from the sun and this allows them to cool below the freezing point of the compounds that they are made of. Elements that are abundant in the planet are oxygen,nitrogen and carbon and there are also small quantities of hydrogen, silicates and helium. Water, methane ice and hydrogen are widely present in the planet. Being the only planets in the solar system made up of mostly ice and covered by thin hydrogen atmospheres, these two are called Ice Giants.

The structure of their atmospheres allows sunlight to be unfiltered by the outer layer and springs off the cloud tops below. Methane makes up most of the atmosphere and it robustly absorbs red and orange light. This nature lets blue light pass through and makes both Uranus and Neptune bluish-green in color.

Although their outer make-up are almost the same, their internal compositions are very different. Uranus has no internal heat which makes it virtually featureless when seen from the earth by the naked eye. On the other hand,Neptune has a burning core and an active and dynamic atmosphere. Like Jupiter and Saturn, and despite being made of different compounds compared with these gas planets, Neptune radiates about 2.7 times as much energy as it receives from the Sun. Dark, elliptical and cyclonic storms occur in the skies of Neptune and in fact, one called the Dark Great Spot, a great storm, appeared on the planet from the 1980 to 1995. Neptune and Uranus were both unknown to ancient astronomers. Uranus was the first planet to be discovered in modern times and it was by William Herschel while he was systematically searching the sky using his telescope on March 13,1781. His sighting was officially the first since many who had seen it before him just took it as simply another star. It was John Flam steed who first saw Uranus in 1960 and cataloged it as 34 Tauri. Neptune was discovered in 1846,interestingly, through mathematical prediction by Urbain Le Verrier.

They both have weird and off-center magnetic fields. Uranus has the same magnetic field strength as Neptune. Uranus’ axis of field (an imaginary line connecting its north and south poles) is tilted 59 degrees from its axis of rotation.

Neptune’ axis is not perpendicular to the path where it revolves in around the sun. It is tilted at about 28 degrees and it spins around in about 16 hours and 7 minutes. Uranus on the other hand, has its axis tilted to the side at 98degrees which makes many astronomers think that a smaller planet could have knocked Uranus to its side soon after its birth.

Furthermore, Uranus and Neptune are different when it comes to the number of satellites they have. Uranus has 21 known satellites while Neptune has 11. Both planets have outer rings. Uranus has a number of rings around it in which only ten are dark and narrow. They range from less than 3 miles to 60 miles wide.Neptune, however, has 3 prominent rings and one that is less obvious.

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