Mark Megahan
The sign will say it’s the last place to stop for services, before sailing off into the void of deep space. Neptune may be far out from the sun, on a loop that takes 165 of our Earth years to go around once, but still has a few things going for it. The planet might just become the first tourist trap in space. For the intergalactic traveler, once humanity decides to leave the nest of our solar system, it’s the last place to build a service station for refueling and supplies. It could even lead someday to other way-points in Neptune “Trojan” orbits.
Last chance for services
By virtue of it’s placement as the farthest planet from the sun, ice giant Neptune is the perfect place to build an intergalactic stop for services. The planet spins on it’s axis like a top in only 16 Earth hours.
The light in the sky wasn’t identified as a planet until 1846. The only way astronomers could find it was because Uranus had a wobble in it’s orbit which only could have come from the gravity influence of another planet.
You can’t see anything at all without a powerful telescope. The Voyager 2 probe actually paid it a visit in 1989 on the way out to deep space. On the way by, it snapped some stunning photos of the bright blue-green planet.
It gets that tint from the methane heavy atmosphere. Methane is a hydrocarbon perfect for reaction mass, giving even more reason to set Neptune up to provide refueling services.
The most distant official planet, now that Pluto has been demoted, Neptune lies at a distance of between 2.7 and 2.9 billion miles from Earth, depending on where the two planets are in their orbits at the time.
Tourists will start dropping in for last chance services simply for a chance to stretch their legs. It took Voyager 2 a full 12 years to get that far. It wasn’t in the fast lane but still, the “probe was traveling at an average speed of 42,000 mph.”
Forecast calls for cold
Be sure to pack warm clothing for your trip to Neptune. Services offered definitely won’t include sun bathing.
The temperature of the planet’s atmosphere is a brisk minus 373 degrees Fahrenheit. Surprisingly, it’s almost the same temperature as Uranus, even though much further away.
The reason Neptune stays so warm is because of gravitational contraction. The extra heat comes from an effect also common to Jupiter and Saturn.
“As the planet slowly gravitationally contracts, the material falling inward changes its potential energy into thermal energy, which is then released upwards out of the planet.” Other services provided will be wind related.
Neptune happens to have the strongest winds in the solar system. Once the engineers come up with power generation windmills which can handle the caustic atmosphere, 1,200 mph winds can generate a whole lot of electricity. Exploiting it to provide power services for space tourists will be another challenge completely.
Super hot oceans could be lurking under clouds of ammonia which rain diamonds. Both Neptune and Uranus are “famous for their ‘diamond rain.’ This is possible because the high atmospheric pressure on these planets — which is more than 200,000 times what it is on Earth — breaks up methane in the atmosphere to release carbon.”
