Neptune

(něp'tūn.) [L. Neptunus.] (Myth.) The principal sea-divinity of the Romans, identified with the Pose i don of the Greeks, was a son of Saturn and Rhea, and a brother of Jupiter. His wife was A mph i trite, and men were said to be indebted to him for the use of horses. He is commonly represented (Fig.491) with M Fig. 491.- NEPTUNE. (After an ancient cameo.) a trident, and with horses or dolphins, often along with A mph i trite, in a chariot drawn by dolphins, and surrounded by tritons and other sea-monsters.-(Ast.) The most distant of all the known planets, and 8th in order of distance from the sun, discovered by Leverrier in 1846. N. travels at a mean distance of not le than 2,745,998,000 m. from the sun, his greatest distance being 2,771,190,000, his least 2,720,806,000. Since the earth's mean distance from the sun is 91,430,000 miles, it follows that the distance of N. from the earth varies from about 2,863,000,000 to about 2,629,000,000 miles. The eccentricity of his orbit is small, amounting only to 0.008720. The inclination of the orbit to the plane of the ecliptic is 1° 47'. N. is somewhat larger than Uranus,his diameter being estimated to be abt. 37,300 m., though, in the case of a planet which is always at so enormous adi stance from the earth, no confident reliance can be placed on such measurements. The volunte ofN. exceeds that of the earth about 105 times, but his density being only 0-16 (the earth's as 1), his ma exceeds the earth only about 1634times. We know nothing about his rotation upon,or the position of, his axis. [s. 637] IMG:p0682_0.jpg:Gravür