travel time earth to neptune

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• NGC 1097 (Spitzer)
• Helix (Spitzer)
• Flame Nebula (WISE)
• Galactic Center (2MASS)
• Cool Andromeda (Herschel)

• Is Neptune sometimes farther out than Pluto?
• What is the weather like on Neptune?
• What is the Great Dark Spot?
• Does Neptune have rings?
• How old is Neptune?
• When was Neptune discovered?
• How long is a day on Neptune?
• How far away is Neptune from the Sun?

How long does it take to get to Neptune from Earth?

• How strong is the gravity on Neptune?
• How big is Neptune?
• How many moons does Neptune have?
• How did Neptune get its name?
• Why is Neptune blue?

How long it would take to get to Neptune from Earth would depend on the path chosen and on where Neptune and Earth were in their orbits when the mission was launched.

For example, the Voyager 2 spacecraft was launched on Aug 20, 1977 and it reached Neptune on Aug 24, 1989. So, Voyager 2 took about twelve years to reach Neptune. As of the time of updating this article in January 2022, Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have visited Neptune.

For more information about Neptune, check out NASA's Solar System Exploration Neptune Overview webpage .

Here's How Many Years It Would Take To Travel To Neptune

Neptune is a bit of a mystery. Now that Pluto has been downgraded to a dwarf planet (a planetary object that's not quite a planet), Neptune is the farthest planet from the sun. The gas giant is so far away, in fact, that it takes over four hours for sunlight to reach it, whereas it only takes eight minutes for sunlight to reach Earth, according to PBS .

Neptune is also a huge planet, almost four times larger than Earth, and not a very human-friendly one. For starters, it's a bit windy — while the strongest winds on Earth reach about 250 mph, winds on Neptune can reach speeds of up to 1,200 mph. These aren't your regular winds either — they're basically frozen gusts of hydrogen, helium, and methane (via NASA ). Not a great combination if you're hoping to stay alive.

On top of that, it's also cold in Neptune: The temperature ranges from between minus 240 and 330 degrees Fahrenheit (per Weather ). Neptune's atmosphere is made up of gas clouds followed by ice followed by more gases. This means if you were to step on Neptune, you would simply sink through it until, eventually, you reached the relatively small core of the planet, which is reported to be similar in size to that of Earth's — made up of a silicate-based rock and iron (per Universe Today ). In other words, there's simply no way Neptune could sustain human life, or even sustain a short visit from a couple of astronauts.

What we've visited so far

We've been in love with the idea of space travel for a long, long time. But, despite our fascination with the stars since the beginning of the space age, we've only managed to reach two planets so far: Mars and Venus. To be fair, we've also landed on the moon and on Titan, the largest of Saturn's moons (via Universe Today ). Titan is a significant addition to the list because it's the most remote of all four landings so far (per Open Mind BBVA ).  

We've only been to Titan once so far and for a short time. The Huygens probe landed on it in 2005 and transmitted data and photos for 90 minutes before it stopped working. NASA is hoping to send a drone to Titan in 2026, so we'll just have to wait for more.

While Mars might be the more famous planet, we've sent plenty of probes to Venus too, with the first one landing in 1962. With current technology, it would take 15 months for a spacecraft to reach Venus and 11 months for it to reach Mars (via Planetary Science Institute). That doesn't sound too bad, though there are plenty of challenges when it comes to keeping astronauts that long in space.

Traveling to Neptune

Things get a bit more complicated the farther away from Earth you move. Since Neptune isn't exactly landing-friendly, the best scientists can do is fly close to it and observe from a distance. But, even that isn't that easy. Neptune is about 4.3 billion kilometers away from Earth, compared to just 225 million kilometers to reach Mars. 

When you convert that to time, you end up with a very, very long space trip. NASA's  space probe Voyager 2 left Earth in 1977 in an effort to reach the far-away planets and gather information. Twelve years later, in 1989, Voyager 2 flew close enough to Neptune to take some breathtaking photos of the blue planet.

It's unlikely a manned spacecraft will ever fly all the way to Neptune. Aside from the fact that they couldn't land on it, there's also the issue with distance. It would likely take a spacecraft carrying astronauts longer than 12 years to reach the blue planet, and there's currently no technology available to allow humans to survive that long in space. According to Tomorrow Biostasis , the answer to long-distance space travel would be cryogenic sleep, a form of super-advanced hibernation .  

Do we want to go to Neptune?

Neptune is a bit of a mystery even to astronomers. According to NASA , it's the only planet not visible to the naked eye. This gas giant is so far away and with such a unique atmosphere, it has fascinated both scientists and Hollywood for a very long time. Both "Star Trek,"  and the horror film "Event Horizon,"  where a ship disappears when orbiting near Neptune, mention the watery planet. 

There's a reason the planet Neptune is so fascinating. According to The Planetary Society , ice planets like Neptune abound in the Universe, so understanding our neighbor could provide information to help scientists understand the universe better. And, while Neptune itself couldn't sustain human life, one of its moons (Triton) could potentially hold water and offer a world of opportunities.

While it's unlikely manned space travel will reach Neptune in the near future, there are two space missions in preparation that include Neptune in their itinerary. The first one is being organized by China and it would follow a similar trajectory to the Voyager 2, flying close to Neptune before continuing on. The second one, by NASA and called TRIDENT, would actually fly by Triton in hopes of identifying a subsurface ocean.

The Planets

How long would it take to get to Neptune?

With the demotion of Pluto to Dwarf Planet, Neptune is now the furthest planet from the Sun in our Solar System. It is an Ice Giant like it's sibling Uranus, and was the second planet to be discovered in the modern era. Originally observed by Galileo and recorded as a fixed star in the night sky, but later proven to be a Planet by Urbain Joseph Le Verrier.

Neptune is very far away from Earth. It orbits the Sun approximately 30 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun (30 AU). It is only observable with the aid of telescopes or strong binoculars, and was not therefore visible to civilisations in antiquity. The planet has an incredibly active atmosphere and our knowledge of it is still very limited. So are there any missions planned to visit this distant planet? And how long would it take to get to Neptune? Let’s take a look.

Neptune – Quick Facts

• Average Distance From The Sun: 4,501,000,000 km (2,796,791,736 mi)
• Radius : 24,764 km (15,387 mi)
• Average Surface Temperature: -214°C (approx -353°F)
• Day length: 16 Earth hours
• Year length: 165 Earth years
• Number of moons: 14
• Closest Distance to Earth: – 4.3 billon kilometers (2.7 billion miles)
• Furthest distance to Earth: – 4.7 billion km (2.9 billion miles)

How far is Earth from Neptune?

At the time of writing, Neptune is currently 4,343,898,102 Km from our planet Earth. At this distance, light takes 4 hours, 1 minutes and 29.68 seconds to travel between the two planets.

The closest that  Earth  and Neptune approach each other is when both planets are in opposition. Opposition happens when Earth moves between an outer planet and the sun. This happens around once every Earth year,1 or 2 days later each year from our perspective on Earth. The closest approach that these planets can make, is when they are aligned, Neptune is at its closest position to the Sun ( perihelion ) and Earth is at its farthest ( aphelion ).

At it’s farthest, Neptune can be as distant as around 4.7 billion km (2.9 billion miles) from Earth. This happens when the planets are on different sides of the Sun to each other. At it’s closest, it can be as far as around 4.3 billon kilometers (2.7 billion miles) from Earth. As the orbit of Neptune and Earth are elliptical, they do change slightly over time. So these closest and farthest distances expand and contract over time.

According to theskylive.com , the closest that Neptune and Earth will reach up to the year 2100, will be on Tue Oct 29 2041 at a distance of 28.81417973 AU, or 4,310,539,942 km.

How Long Would it Take to Get to Neptune?

The time it takes light to travel between Neptune and Earth at average distance, is a little over 4 hours (240 minutes). But of course we can’t travel at the speed of light. So far, there has only been one mission to visit Neptune, Voyager 2, which conducted a flyby on it’s tour of the solar system.

Voyager 2 launched on August 20, 1977, started observing Neptune on June 5, 1989 but reached it’s closest approach with the planet on August 25, 1989. At the close approach, Voyager 2 was a mere 4,950 km above Neptune’s north pole. So mission flight time was roughly 12 years and 5 days for arrival at this distant giant.

Placing a craft in stable orbit, or dropping a probe into the atmosphere could take considerably longer. Launches need to be timed to align with optimal distance, as well as the position of other planets to allow for a gravity assist. The approach would also need to be calculated to allow the craft to slow and enter orbit at an acceptable speed.

What is the Shortest Trip?

Voyager 2 is the only craft to have visited Neptune so far, with a flight time of 12 years and 5 days to close approach. Until another mission is launched, this is the quickest trip to this icy neighbour so far.

How Often Does The Closest Approach Occur?

The Earth and Neptune come into Opposition roughly every 365 – 368 days. They are in their closest approach when they are in opposition. However, given that their orbits are elliptical, the distance of close approach will change over time on a longer cycle. As mentioned above the closest the planets will reach this century will occur in the year 2041.

Missions To Neptune

So far, there has only been one mission to Neptune, as mentioned above:

• Voyager 2 – Launched Aug 20, 1977 – Closest Approach Aug 25, 1989 – Flight Duration – 12 years, 5 days. This mission was a flyby in which Voyager 2 collected data about the planet, it’s atmosphere and its moons. Voyager 2 continued to collect data up until October 2, 1989.

Voyager 2 collected data and photos of some of Neptune’s moons too. There were plans to move the craft closer between the planet and the moon Triton, but these had to be altered to allow for a clearer path away from ring debris. While we had been actively investigating the planet for decades indirectly through telescopes and observations, this mission was answered many questions that needed direct study.

We learned a ton about the lively atmosphere, the magnetosphere and it’s accurate mass. We learned about the planet’s storms and periodic spots similar to Jupiter’s red spot .

Future Missions To Neptune

At present there are no active plans to return to Neptune. However, there are still some proposals/concepts for potential missions being explored by many stakeholders. The ESA, NASA and the CNSA are all exploring potential missions for a return to the 8th planet but time will tell if any of these plans eventually get off the ground.

How Far Is Neptune From The Other Planets?

The following are average distances between Neptune and the other planets in the Solar System :

• Distance From Neptune to Mercury: 4,443,090,000 km or 2,760,936,126 miles
• Distance From Neptune to Venus: 4,392,800,000 km or 2,729,685,920 miles
• Distance From Neptune to Mars: 4,273,060,000 km or 2,655,279,484 miles
• Distance From Neptune to Jupiter: 3,722,670,000 km or 2,313,267,138 miles
• Distance From Neptune to Saturn: 3,076,400,000 km or 1,911,674,960 miles
• Distance From Neptune to Uranus: 1,627,450,000 km or 1,011,297,430 miles

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Dark, cold, and whipped by supersonic winds, ice giant Neptune is the eighth and most distant planet in our solar system. More than 30 times as far from the Sun as Earth, Neptune is the only planet in our solar system not visible to the naked eye. In 2011 Neptune completed its first 165-year orbit since its discovery in 1846.

Neptune is so far from the Sun that high noon on the big blue planet would seem like dim twilight to us. The warm light we see here on our home planet is roughly 900 times as bright as sunlight on Neptune.

The ice giant Neptune was the first planet located through mathematical calculations. Using predictions made by Urbain Le Verrier, Johann Galle discovered the planet in 1846. The planet is named after the Roman god of the sea, as suggested by Le Verrier.

Potential for Life

Neptune's environment is not conducive to life as we know it. The temperatures, pressures, and materials that characterize this planet are most likely too extreme and volatile for organisms to adapt to.

Size and Distance

With a radius of 15,299.4 miles (24,622 kilometers), Neptune is about four times wider than Earth. If Earth were the size of a nickel, Neptune would be about as big as a baseball.

From an average distance of 2.8 billion miles (4.5 billion kilometers), Neptune is 30 astronomical units away from the Sun. One astronomical unit (abbreviated as AU), is the distance from the Sun to Earth. From this distance, it takes sunlight 4 hours to travel from the Sun to Neptune.

Orbit and Rotation

One day on Neptune takes about 16 hours (the time it takes for Neptune to rotate or spin once). And Neptune makes a complete orbit around the Sun (a year in Neptunian time) in about 165 Earth years (60,190 Earth days).

Sometimes Neptune is even farther from the Sun than dwarf planet Pluto. Pluto's highly eccentric, oval-shaped orbit brings it inside Neptune's orbit for a 20-year period every 248 Earth years. This switch, in which Pluto is closer to the Sun than Neptune, happened most recently from 1979 to 1999. Pluto can never crash into Neptune, though, because for every three laps Neptune takes around the Sun, Pluto makes two. This repeating pattern prevents close approaches of the two bodies.

Neptune’s axis of rotation is tilted 28 degrees with respect to the plane of its orbit around the Sun, which is similar to the axial tilts of Mars and Earth. This means that Neptune experiences seasons just like we do on Earth; however, since its year is so long, each of the four seasons lasts for over 40 years.

Neptune has 14 known moons. Neptune's largest moon Triton was discovered on October 10, 1846, by William Lassell, just 17 days after Johann Gottfried Galle discovered the planet. Since Neptune was named for the Roman god of the sea, its moons are named for various lesser sea gods and nymphs in Greek mythology.

Triton is the only large moon in the solar system that circles its planet in a direction opposite to the planet's rotation (a retrograde orbit), which suggests that it may once have been an independent object that Neptune captured. Triton is extremely cold, with surface temperatures around minus 391 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 235 degrees Celsius). And yet, despite this deep freeze at Triton, Voyager 2 discovered geysers spewing icy material upward more than 5 miles (8 kilometers). Triton's thin atmosphere, also discovered by Voyager, has been detected from Earth several times since, and is growing warmer, but scientists do not yet know why.

Neptune has at least five main rings and four prominent ring arcs that we know of so far. Starting near the planet and moving outward, the main rings are named Galle, Leverrier, Lassell, Arago, and Adams. The rings are thought to be relatively young and short-lived.

Neptune's ring system also has peculiar clumps of dust called arcs. Four prominent arcs named Liberté (Liberty), Egalité (Equality), Fraternité (Fraternity), and Courage are in the outermost ring, Adams. The arcs are strange because the laws of motion would predict that they would spread out evenly rather than stay clumped together. Scientists now think the gravitational effects of Galatea, a moon just inward from the ring, stabilizes these arcs.

Neptune took shape when the rest of the solar system formed about 4.5 billion years ago when gravity pulled swirling gas and dust in to become this ice giant. Like its neighbor Uranus, Neptune likely formed closer to the Sun and moved to the outer solar system about 4 billion years ago.

Neptune is one of two ice giants in the outer solar system (the other is Uranus). Most (80% or more) of the planet's mass is made up of a hot dense fluid of "icy" materials – water, methane, and ammonia – above a small, rocky core. Of the giant planets, Neptune is the densest.

Scientists think there might be an ocean of super hot water under Neptune's cold clouds. It does not boil away because incredibly high pressure keeps it locked inside.

Neptune does not have a solid surface. Its atmosphere (made up mostly of hydrogen, helium, and methane) extends to great depths, gradually merging into water and other melted ices over a heavier, solid core with about the same mass as Earth.

Neptune's atmosphere is made up mostly of hydrogen and helium with just a little bit of methane. Neptune's neighbor Uranus is a blue-green color due to such atmospheric methane, but Neptune is a more vivid, brighter blue, so there must be an unknown component that causes the more intense color.

Neptune is our solar system's windiest world. Despite its great distance and low energy input from the Sun, Neptune's winds can be three times stronger than Jupiter's and nine times stronger than Earth's. These winds whip clouds of frozen methane across the planet at speeds of more than 1,200 miles per hour (2,000 kilometers per hour). Even Earth's most powerful winds hit only about 250 miles per hour (400 kilometers per hour).

In 1989 a large, oval-shaped storm in Neptune's southern hemisphere dubbed the "Great Dark Spot" was large enough to contain the entire Earth. That storm has since disappeared, but new ones have appeared on different parts of the planet.

Magnetosphere

The main axis of Neptune's magnetic field is tipped over by about 47 degrees compared with the planet's rotation axis. Like Uranus, whose magnetic axis is tilted about 60 degrees from the axis of rotation, Neptune's magnetosphere undergoes wild variations during each rotation because of this misalignment. The magnetic field of Neptune is about 27 times more powerful than that of Earth.​

• NASA Planetary Photojournal: Neptune
• National Space Science Data Center Photo Gallery: Neptune
• Neptune 3D Model
• Neptune Poster - Version A
• Neptune Poster - Version B

Living Cosmos

Our Universe, Explored

How Long Does It Take to Reach Neptune?

The average travel time to Neptune can vary greatly, but historical data from Voyager 2 indicates that it took the spacecraft approximately 12 years to make the journey.

With a distance varying from approximately 2.7 to 2.9 billion miles from Earth, depending on their respective positions in their orbits, the journey to this remote ice giant is nothing short of an interstellar odyssey.

Neptune, almost four times the size of Earth , presents significant challenges for space exploration due in part to its vast distance and harsh, cold environment.

The time it would take for a spacecraft to reach Neptune depends greatly on the trajectory, the technology available, and where both planets are in their orbits at the time of launch.

Historical missions provide some perspective: NASA’s Voyager 2, the only spacecraft to have visited Neptune, was launched on August 20, 1977, and arrived at the planet more than twelve years later, on August 24, 1989.

This mission set a benchmark for the timeframe required to reach the outer limits of our solar system.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What technological advancements could shorten the transit time to neptune.

Advancements in propulsion systems, like more efficient fuel or propulsion technologies such as ion drives or solar sails, could potentially reduce the travel time to Neptune.

How does the orbital position of Earth and Neptune impact the length of the trip?

The orbital positions of Earth and Neptune can greatly impact the journey as they determine the shortest possible path and launch windows, which in turn affect the mission’s duration and energy requirements.

Related posts:

• How Do Astronauts Get Back to Earth?
• What Are The Different Types of Stars? (Ultimate Guide)
• What Is a Comet? Here’s All You Need to Know
• How Did Planet Mars Get Its Name?

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Neptune: Size, distance from the Sun, orbit

Rotation: It takes Neptune only 16 Earth hours for it to spin on its axis once.

Surface: Like the other gas-giant planets, Neptune’s “surface” is the top of its deep atmosphere. This contains hydrogen (79 percent), helium (18 percent), and methane (3 percent), which gives the planet its blue color. Neptune’s atmosphere has a striped pattern like both Jupiter’s and Saturn’s.

Johann Galle and Heinrich D’Arrest discovered Neptune in 1846.

Neptune has 13 moons, the two largest are Triton and Nereid. Triton is made of rock and ice. Its surface is rich in water ice, dry ice, frozen carbon monoxide, methane, and nitrogen. Triton has cold geysers that spit nitrogen instead of the hot water that geysers on Earth release.

Neptune was the Roman god of the oceans.

You can get more facts on the planets in our solar system in each of the articles linked to below:

2024 Full Moon calendar: Dates, times, types, and names

How closely packed are Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids?

A ‘shocking’ number of meteorites — and their secrets — are sinking into Antarctic ice due to global warming

How do you find a black hole? An astronomer explains the thrilling hunt

The science behind the ‘spiders’ on Mars and the Inca City

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The Milky Way, to ancient Egyptians, was probably mixed Nuts

The reasons why numbers go on forever

Astronomy Magazine Annual Index

Neptune Position Calculator

Compute the position of Neptune for any date and time between 1 January 1600 and 30 December 2499 and visualize the results on an interactive sky map.

Neptune is the eighth and farthest planet from the sun, and it is the fourth-largest planet in the solar system. It has a diameter of 49,244 kilometers and a mass of 1.02 x 10^26 kilograms, making it about 17 times more massive than Earth. Neptune is an ice giant planet, primarily composed of water, methane, and ammonia, and has a deep, turbulent atmosphere with strong winds and large storms, including the famous Great Dark Spot and the smaller Dark Spot. The planet has a day length of approximately 16.1 Earth hours and an orbital period of 165 Earth years. Neptune has 14 known moons, with the largest being Triton, a captured Kuiper Belt object with a highly inclined and retrograde orbit. Neptune also has a faint and dynamic ring system, which was discovered in 1984 during a stellar occultation. The planet has been explored by only one spacecraft, NASA's Voyager 2, which flew by the planet in 1989, providing the most detailed images and data of the planet and its moons to date.

Neptune is currently in the constellation of Pisces , at a distance of 4,575,650,352 kilometers from Earth.

Today's rise, transit and set times of Neptune from Greenwich, United Kingdom (all times relative to the local timezone Europe/London):

• Neptune is above the horizon from Greenwich, United Kingdom .
• Right now it is placed in the West-South-West direction at an altitude of 17° above the horizon.
• Given its current magnitude, Neptune is visible with the help of a binocular with a 30-40mm aperture, easy with a small telescope.
• Go to interactive sky chart

If you need to access this information frequently for your observations, you can create a simple customized Quick Access page , so that you can easily bookmark it in your browser favorites or add a shortcut to your mobile phones' home screen.

• Position and finder charts (see also Where is Neptune? )
• Distance from Earth (see also How far is Neptune from Earth? )
• When does Neptune rise and set?
• Brightness (see also How bright is Neptune? )
• Physical data . Detailed information about physical properties of Neptune, such as mass and geometric properties.
• 15 days ephemerides . Table showing celestial coordinates and magnitude of Neptune for the past and next 7 days.
• Interactive sky chart . An online planetarium application that shows where to locate Neptune in the sky from your location.
• Live position tracker . A high precision sky chart that uses real deep sky imagery to help locate Neptune with your telescope or on your astrophotographies.

Neptune Position and Finder Charts

Higher precision deep sky finder chart, 60 arcmin wide, showing where Neptune is right now. Click on the image to see a more detailed fullscreen tracker view .

Also check out Where is Neptune? , a page that provides all the information needed to find Neptune in the sky and additional links to sky charts.

Neptune Distance from Earth

The distance of Neptune from Earth is currently 4,575,650,352 kilometers, equivalent to 30.586333 Astronomical Units . Light takes 4 hours, 14 minutes and 22.7267 seconds to travel from Neptune and arrive to us.

The following chart shows the distance of Neptune from Earth as a function of time. In the chart the distance data is measured in Astronomical Units and sampled with an interval of 1 day.

Closest Approach of Neptune to Earth

NOTE: values for the closest approach are computed with a sampling interval of 1 day.

Neptune Brightness and Light Curve

The following chart is the predicted light curve (visual magnitude as a function of time) of Neptune, according to the most recent ephemerides data. Magnitude data is sampled with a 2 days interval and there might be inaccuracies for objects changing brightness very rapidly during the course of a few days. For comets there could be large discrepancies between the observed and predicted brightness because of their highly dynamic behaviour.

Neptune Physical Data

The following shows the known values of the most important physical parameters of Neptune. Source: JPL Small-Body Database

Neptune 15 Days Ephemeris

The following table lists the ephemerides of Neptune computed for the past and next 7 days, with a 24 hours interval. Click on each row of the table to locate Neptune in our Online Planetarium at the chosen date.

Neptune Ephemeris Calculator

Compute the position of Neptune for any date and time between 1 January 1600 and 30 December 2499 and display the results on an interactive star map.

Neptune Fact Sheet

Neptune/earth comparison, bulk parameters, orbital parameters, neptune observational parameters, neptune mean orbital elements (j2000), north pole of rotation, neptunian magnetosphere, neptunian atmosphere, nasa official: dave williams, [email protected] last updated: 11 march 2024, drw.

• How Long Would It Take To Travel To Each Planet?

Our solar system is home to eight individual planets . Moving outwards from the sun , they are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Some of these worlds are far closer than others, and the time it would take to travel to each planet is different for every one of them. Just how long would it take to travel to each planet?

Mercury and Venus

How long it would take to travel to the planets is dependent upon a number of factors, such as the route you take, the spacecraft you use, and where the planets are located in their respective orbits . To simplify things, we will assume that the route you take is a direct one and that the planets are at their closest approach to one another. Furthermore, we will assume that any spacecraft we use to travel to the planets is as fast as the New Horizons spacecraft, which happens to be one of the fastest human-made objects ever built. At its fastest, New Horizons reached a speed of about 50,000-miles per hour (80,000-kilometres per hour). Since Mercury and Venus are the closest planets to Earth , the time it would take to travel to them will be the shortest. At its closest approach, Mercury is about 48-million miles (77-million kilometres) from Earth. To calculate time, we simply divide distance by velocity, so in this case we divide 48-million miles by 50,000-miles per hour, giving us 960-hours of travel time. Divide this by 24-hours, and we get the number of days it would take to get to Mercury, which ends up being 40-days. When Venus is at its closest approach to Earth, it is about 38-million miles (61-million kilometres) away, and so it would take about 32-days to get to Venus. 

Mars is the most frequently visited planet in our solar system. While humans have yet to land on the Martian surface, space agencies have sent a number of rovers , landers, and satellites to study the Red Planet. During its closest approach, Mars is about 51-million miles (82-million kilometres) away from Earth. Moving at a speed of 50,000-miles per hour, it would take you about 42.5-days to reach Mars. 

Jupiter and Saturn

Beyond the orbit of Mars is the realm of the gas giants . Beyond Mars, the gas giants are much further away than their rocky counterparts. Jupiter is the closest gas giant to Earth, yet even at its closest approach it is still 367-million miles (590-million kilometres) away from our world. At this distance and moving at a speed of 50,000-miles per hour, it would take you 306-days to reach Jupiter. Saturn , meanwhile, is much further away than even Jupiter. At its closest approach to Earth, Saturn is 746-million miles (1.2-billion kilometres) away. At this distance, it would take you 622-days or 1.7-years to reach Saturn. 

Uranus and Neptune

Beyond Jupiter and Saturn are the two outermost planets of our solar system, Uranus and Neptune . These two worlds are so far away from us that they are the only two planets not visible to the naked eye. At its closest approach to the Earth, Uranus is located a staggering 1.7-billion miles (2.7-billion kilometres) away. Travelling in a spacecraft moving at 50,000-miles per hour, it would take you 1,416-days or 3.88-years to reach Uranus. When Neptune is at its closest approach, the distance between Earth and Neptune is 2.7-billion miles (4.3-billion kilometres), and so it would take 2,250-days or 6.16-years.

Planetary Travel Time

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Neptune approach.

In the summer of 1989, NASA's Voyager 2 became the first spacecraft to observe the planet Neptune, its final planetary target. Passing about 4,950 kilometers (3,000 miles) above Neptune's north pole, Voyager 2 made its closest approach to any planet 12 years after leaving Earth in 1977. Five hours later, Voyager 2 passed about 40,000 kilometers (25,000 miles) from Neptune's largest moon, Triton, the last solid body the spacecraft will have an opportunity to study.

Neptune is one of the class of planets -- all of them beyond the asteroid belt -- known as gas giants; the others in this class are Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. These planets are about 4 to 12 times greater in diameter than Earth. They have no solid surfaces but possess massive atmospheres that contain substantial amounts of hydrogen and helium with traces of other gases.

Voyager 1, launched September 5, 1977, visited Jupiter in 1979 and Saturn in 1980. It is now leaving the solar system, rising above the ecliptic plane at an angle of about 35 degrees, at a rate of about 520 million kilometers a year.

Voyager 2, launched August 20, 1977, visited Jupiter in 1979, Saturn in 1981 and Uranus in 1986 before making its closest approach to Neptune on August 25, 1989. Voyager 2 traveled 12 years at an average velocity of 19 kilometers a second (about 42,000 miles an hour) to reach Neptune, which is 30 times farther from the Sun than Earth is. Voyager observed Neptune almost continuously from June to October 1989. Now Voyager 2 is also headed out of the solar system, diving below the ecliptic plane at an angle of about 48 degrees and a rate of about 470 million kilometers a year.

Both spacecraft will continue to study ultraviolet sources among the stars, and their fields and particles detectors will continue to search for the boundary between the Sun's influence and interstellar space. If all goes well, we will be able to communicate with the two spacecraft for another 20 years, until their radioactive power sources can no longer supply enough electrical energy to power critical subsystems.

The Propulsion System That Could Get Us From Earth to Neptune in 1 Year

It doesn’t get more sci-fi than this ... and NASA is on board.

• The technology could transport spacecraft weighing 1 ton to the orbit of Neptune in one year.
• The system is somewhat similar to a solar sail .

Far-flung science fiction often depicts humanity as an interplanetary (or even interstellar) species, but there’s a lot of technological advancement that needs to happen to move us from Earthbound terrestrials to spacefaring explorers. Luckily, there’s the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program .

Dedicated to exploring advanced space-based technologies, NIAC just announced 14 recipients of a $175,000 grant to help bring some of these sci-fi inspired technologies to life. Among them are ideas like TitanAir , a seaplane designed to fly though the nitrogen-and-methane atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan, and lunar pipelines designed to transport oxygen between moon-based settlements.

“NASA dares to make the impossible possible,” NASA administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. “The NIAC program helps give these forward-thinking scientists and engineers the tools and support they need to spur technology that will enable future NASA missions.”

But to make “the impossible possible,” as Nelson says, scientists need to crack the biggest hurdle to space travel: getting from point A to point B much faster. Three projects in NAIC’s group of 14 aim to reimagine space travel, but the most ambitious is an idea called “ pellet-beam propulsion .”

Traveling at only 3.6 AU (1 AU is the distance from the Earth to the Sun) a year, the Voyager missions took nearly half a human lifetime to reach the heliopause. Artur Davoyan of UCLA wants to speed up that process dramatically by using fast-moving particles propelled by lasers.

Similar to solar sail concepts that have been around for years, this pellet-beam propulsion system could transport spacecraft weighing one ton to the orbit of Neptune in just one year—it took Voyager 2 twice as long just to get to Jupiter. Extrapolated, this technology could even travel 500 AU in 15 years, placing spacecraft smack dab in the scattered disk of the Kuiper Belt .

The project’s Phase I investigation will research these exciting-yet-bold claims by modeling the pellet-beam technology’s subsystems and designing proof-of-concept studies (with hopefully encouraging results).

Pellet-beams aren’t the only propulsion technology in town, as two other NIAC projects turn to nuclear reactors for ways to push humans beyond the limits of conventional rockets.

The first (and most well known) is a new class of Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) engine, a propulsion system powered by fission that is estimated to reduce travel times to Mars by at least 25 percent. Another concept is a nuclear fission fragment rocket engine, or FFRE, that NASA says would be “exponentially more propellent efficient than rocket engines.” The problem? Right now, FFRE engines are prohibitively massive, incredibly complex, and have some pretty big thermal constraints—issues the propulsion company Positron Dynamics hopes to address.

With all three of these concepts, chemical rockets would still have their place by providing the initial escape from Earth’s gravity. But it’s clear from these NIAC selections that NASA is eager to move beyond the speed limitation of today’s rockets.

Darren lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes/edits about sci-fi and how our world works. You can find his previous stuff at Gizmodo and Paste if you look hard enough. 

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Calculate how long it would take to reach planets, stars, or galaxies, as well as fuel mass, velocity and more, journey details.

How Far Away is Neptune from the Sun and the Earth?

Neptune, the blue planet, orbits the Sun further out than Uranus at an average distance of 2.79 billion miles (4.49 billion km) , which is 30 times further out than the Earth. At this rate, Neptune takes a whopping 165 Earth years to complete one orbit around the Sun.

At this distance from the Sun, what does a day and a year on Neptune look like? If we were to ever visit this distant planet, how long would it take to get there? 

Let’s find out!

How Far Away is Neptune From the Sun?

Neptune is at a distance of 2.77 billion miles (4.46 billion km) when it is closest to the Sun and 2.82 billion miles (4.54 billion km) away when it is farthest from the Sun.

At times, Pluto ‘crosses’ Neptune’s orbit and remains inside it for 20 years . At these times, dwarf planet Pluto is closer to the Sun than Neptune, but the planets never collide with each other because they are always at different points in their orbits when this happens.

How Far Away is Neptune From the Earth?

Neptune is 2.7 billion miles (4.3 billion km) away when it is closest to Earth and 2.8 billion miles (4.5 billion km) when it is the furthest from Earth. 

As the Earth and Neptune orbit the Sun, the distance between them keeps changing. At times Neptune is behind the Sun, leading to the alignment of Neptune, the Sun, and Earth, with the Sun in between Earth and Neptune. At this point, known as a solar conjunction, Neptune is as far away as it can be from Earth, at nearly 2.82 billion miles (4.54 billion km). 

As the distance keeps changing, Neptune’s closest approach to Earth occurs when both planets are on the same side of the Sun. At this time, known as opposition, Earth is placed in between the Sun and Neptune, reducing the distance between the two planets to nearly 2.7 billion miles (4.3 billion km).

When it is closest to Earth, Neptune shines at magnitude 7.8 , which means it is not visible to the naked eye. Even if you use a telescope to see Neptune , its vast distance makes it almost impossible to distinguish it as more than a point-like star.

Distance of Neptune from Sun and Earth in 2021

The following table shows how far away the planet Neptune is from Earth for each month in 2021. The distance is taken at the 15th of each month.

Neptune is closest to Earth in September and farthest in March, which are both bolded.

The following table shows how far away the planet Neptune is from the Sun for each month in 2021, also based on the 15th of each month.

You can see that the variation in distance from the Sun is not as marked as the distance from Earth. This is because Earth’s own orbit around the Sun causes a greater change in the distance between the two planets.

Over the course of 2021, Neptune moves half a million miles closer to our star.

*AU=Astronomical Units, which is the same as 92,955,807 miles, or 149,598,000 km. Learn more about Astronomical Units .

How Long Would It Take to Reach Neptune?

Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft that visited Neptune, and it took 12 years to get there. Light, on the other hand, travels to Neptune from Earth in about 4 hours and 4 minutes when the two planets are at their closest.

So far, in this article, we have learned of the distance from Earth to Neptune at two important points in its orbit — one when the planet is closest and the other when it is the furthest. Let’s now look at the detail of how long it takes to get to Neptune.

There are two ways to go about this. First, we will look at the time light takes to reach Neptune from Earth. 

Next, we’ll board an imaginary spaceship and see how long it will take us to travel to Neptune

Let’s go! 

How Long Does Light Take to Travel from Neptune to Earth?

Light travels the fastest of all known objects because it has no mass. Its speed is 186,282 miles per second . At this rate, light takes 499 seconds to reach Earth from the Sun, a distance known as an Astronomical Unit (AU) .

Let’s take a look at the shortest, longest, and the average time for light to travel between Earth and Neptune. 

Shortest Distance = 2.7 billion miles (4.3 billion km) = 29.04 AU

Calculation: 29.04*499 = 14,491 seconds = 4.03 hours .

Average = 2.76 billion miles (4.4 billion km) = 29.60 AU

Calculation: 29.6*499 = 14,770 seconds = 4.10 hours .

Furthest = 2.82 billion miles (4.54 billion km) = 30.1 AU

Calculation: 30.1*499 = 15,020 seconds = 4.17 hours . 

At its average distance of 2.76 billion miles (4.4 billion km), light takes 4.1 hours to reach Neptune from Earth. As the planets orbit the Sun, this time varies between 4.03 hours and 4.17 hours (242 minutes and 250 minutes).

This also means that when you look at Neptune from a telescope, you are looking at it as it looked at least 4 hours ago!

How Long Does it Take a Spaceship to Travel to Neptune? 

Only one spacecraft, Voyager 2, has visited Neptune so far. It traveled as close as 3,000 miles (4,950 km) above Neptune’s north poles. Voyager 2 took 12 years to arrive at Neptune .

How Long is a Day on Neptune? 

Neptune rotates with a speed of 2.68 km/s . At this speed, Neptune takes just 16 hours to complete a rotation on its axis — that’s how long a day on the planet is.

Calculating the length of a day is done by working out a planet’s rotational speed, usually by measuring the rotational speed of its core. This is harder for ice giants because they have a  very small solid core engulfed by icy layers , making it difficult to get accurate measurements.

How Long is a Year on Neptune?

Neptune takes 165 Earth years to orbit the Sun . While a day on Neptune is shorter than that on Earth, its year is much longer. This means that Neptune rotates faster than Earth but orbits the Sun more slowly .

Are There Seasons on Neptune?

Neptune is tilted by 29 degrees . Its axial tilt combined with its lengthy year leads to 40-year-long seasons on the planet. 

During summer, Neptune receives more sunlight on the hemisphere facing the Sun, and scientists have observed that its cloud bands get brighter as summer progresses.

Most interesting is that Neptune experiences seasons at all because it receives 900 times less sunlight than Earth does. The planet also hosts some extreme seasonal changes and fierce winds of up to 1500 km/h, the origins of which are unclear .

Neptune is the eighth, and final, planet from the Sun and orbits our star at an average distance of 2.79 billion miles (4.49 billion km) . At this large distance, Neptune takes just 16 hours to complete one rotation about its axis, but a lengthy 165 Earth years to finish one orbit around the Sun. 

Even at this distance, Neptune experiences all four seasons — summer, winter, fall, and spring, as on Earth, except each season stretches for 40 long years due to Neptune’s orbit.

Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft that has visited Neptune so far, and it took 12 years to get there. 

Would you hop on a spacecraft to visit Neptune? 

Sharmila Kuthunur is an astronomy science writer based in the US. She has been a bibliophile for as...

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Orbits and Kepler’s Laws

Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion

The story of how we understand planetary motion could not be told if it were not for the work of a German mathematician named Johannes Kepler. 

Kepler's three laws describe how planets orbit the Sun. They describe how (1) planets move in elliptical orbits with the Sun as a focus, (2) a planet covers the same area of space in the same amount of time no matter where it is in its orbit, and (3) a planet’s orbital period is proportional to the size of its orbit.

Who Was Johannes Kepler?

Johannes Kepler was born on Dec. 27, 1571, in Weil der Stadt, Württemberg, which is now in the German state of Baden-Württemberg.

As a rather frail young man, the exceptionally talented Kepler turned to mathematics and the study of the heavens early on. When he was six, his mother pointed out a comet visible in the night sky. When Kepler was nine, his father took him out one night under the stars to observe a lunar eclipse. These events both made a vivid impression on Kepler's youthful mind and turned him toward a life dedicated to astronomy.

Kepler lived and worked in Graz, Austria, during the tumultuous early 17th century. Due to religious and political difficulties common during that era, Kepler was banished from Graz on Aug. 2, 1600. 

Fortunately, he found work as an assistant to the famous Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (usually referred to by his first name) in Prague. Kepler moved his family from Graz, 300 miles (480 kilometers) across the Danube River to Tycho's home.

Kepler and the Mars Problem

Tycho was a brilliant astronomer. He is credited with making the most accurate astronomical observations of his time, which he accomplished without the aid of a telescope. He had been impressed with Kepler’s studies in an earlier meeting. 

However, some historians think Tycho mistrusted Kepler, fearing that his bright young intern might eclipse him as the premier astronomer of his day. Because of this, he only let Kepler see part of his voluminous collection of planetary data.

Tycho assigned Kepler the task of understanding the orbit of the planet Mars. The movement of Mars was problematic – it didn’t quite fit the models as described by Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle (384 to 322 B.C.E.) and Egyptian astronomer Claudius Ptolemy (about 100 C.E to 170 C.E.). Aristotle thought Earth was the center of the universe, and that the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars revolved around it. Ptolemy developed this concept into a standardized,  geocentric model (now known as the Ptolemaic system) based around Earth as a stationary object, at the center of the universe.

Historians think that part of Tycho’s motivation for giving the Mars problem to Kepler was Tycho's hope that it would keep Kepler occupied while Tycho worked to perfect his own theory of the solar system. That theory was based on a geocentric model, modified from Ptolemy's, in which the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn all orbit the Sun, which in turn orbits Earth. 

As it turned out, Kepler, unlike Tycho, believed firmly in a model of the solar system known as the heliocentric model, which correctly placed the Sun at its center. This is also known as the Copernican system, because it was developed by astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543). But the reason Mars' orbit was problematic was because the Copernican system incorrectly assumed the orbits of the planets to be circular.

Like many philosophers of his era, Kepler had a mystical belief that the circle was the universe’s perfect shape, so he also thought the planets’ orbits must be circular. For many years, he struggled to make Tycho’s observations of the motions of Mars match up with a circular orbit.

Kepler eventually realized that the orbits of the planets are not perfect circles. His brilliant insight was that planets move in elongated, or flattened, circles called ellipses. 

The particular difficulties Tycho had with the movement of Mars were due to the fact that its orbit was the most elliptical of the planets for which he had extensive data. Thus, in a twist of irony, Tycho unwittingly gave Kepler the very part of his data that would enable his assistant to formulate the correct theory of the solar system.

Basic Properties of Ellipses

Since the orbits of the planets are ellipses, it might be helpful to review three basic properties of an ellipse:

• An ellipse is defined by two points, each called a focus, and together called foci. The sum of the distances to the foci from any point on the ellipse is always a constant. 
• The amount of flattening of the ellipse is called the eccentricity. The flatter the ellipse, the more eccentric it is. Each ellipse has an eccentricity with a value between zero (a circle), and one (essentially a flat line, technically called a parabola).
• The longest axis of the ellipse is called the major axis, while the shortest axis is called the minor axis. Half of the major axis is termed a semi-major axis. 

After determining that the orbits of the planets are elliptical, Kepler formulated three laws of planetary motion, which accurately described the motion of comets as well.

Kepler's Laws

In 1609 Kepler published “Astronomia Nova,” which explained what are now called Kepler's first two laws of planetary motion. Kepler had noticed that an imaginary line drawn from a planet to the Sun swept out an equal area of space in equal times, regardless of where the planet was in its orbit. If you draw a triangle from the Sun to a planet’s position at one point in time and its position at a fixed time later, the area of that triangle is always the same, anywhere in the orbit. 

For all these triangles to have the same area, the planet must move more quickly when it’s near the Sun, but more slowly when it is farther from the Sun. This discovery became Kepler’s second law of orbital motion, and led to the realization of what became Kepler’s first law: that the planets move in an ellipse with the Sun at one focus point, offset from the center. 

In 1619, Kepler published “Harmonices Mundi,” in which he describes his "third law." The third law shows that there is a precise mathematical relationship between a planet’s distance from the Sun and the amount of time it takes revolve around the Sun.

Here are Kepler’s Three Laws:

Kepler's First Law : Each planet's orbit about the Sun is an ellipse. The Sun's center is always located at one focus of the ellipse. The planet follows the ellipse in its orbit, meaning that the planet-to-Sun distance is constantly changing as the planet goes around its orbit.

Kepler's Second Law: The imaginary line joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out – or covers – equal areas of space during equal time intervals as the planet orbits. Basically, the planets do not move with constant speed along their orbits. Instead, their speed varies so that the line joining the centers of the Sun and the planet covers an equal area in equal amounts of time. The point of nearest approach of the planet to the Sun is called perihelion. The point of greatest separation is aphelion, hence by Kepler's second law, a planet is moving fastest when it is at perihelion and slowest at aphelion.

Kepler's Third Law: The orbital period of a planet, squared, is directly proportional to the semi-major axes of its orbit, cubed. This is written in equation form as p 2 =a 3 . Kepler's third law implies that the period for a planet to orbit the Sun increases rapidly with the radius of its orbit. Mercury, the innermost planet, takes only 88 days to orbit the Sun. Earth takes 365 days, while distant Saturn requires 10,759 days to do the same.  

How We Use Kepler’s Laws Today

Kepler didn’t know about gravity, which is responsible for holding the planets in their orbits around the Sun, when he came up with his three laws. But Kepler’s laws were instrumental in Isaac Newton’s development of his theory of universal gravitation, which explained the unknown force behind Kepler's third law. Kepler and his theories were crucial in the understanding of solar system dynamics and as a springboard to newer theories that more accurately approximate planetary orbits. However, his third law only applies to objects in our own solar system. 

Newton’s version of Kepler’s third law allows us to calculate the masses of any two objects in space if we know the distance between them and how long they take to orbit each other (their orbital period). What Newton realized was that the orbits of objects in space depend on their masses, which led him to discover gravity.

Newton’s generalized version of Kepler’s third law is the basis of most measurements we can make of the masses of distant objects in space today. These applications include determining the masses of moons orbiting the planets, stars that orbit each other, the masses of black holes (using nearby stars affected by their gravity), the masses of exoplanets (planets orbiting stars other than our Sun), and the existence of mysterious dark matter in our galaxy and others.

In planning trajectories (or flight plans) for spacecraft, and in making measurements of the masses of the moons and planets, modern scientists often go a step beyond Newton. They account for factors related to Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, which is necessary to achieve the precision required by modern science measurements and spaceflight. 

However, Newton’s laws are still accurate enough for many applications, and Kepler’s laws remain an excellent guide for understanding how the planets move in our solar system.

Johannes Kepler died Nov. 15, 1630, at age 58. NASA's Kepler space telescope was named for him. The spacecraft launched March 6, 2009, and spent nine years searching for Earth-like planets orbiting other stars in our region of the Milky Way. The Kepler space telescope left a legacy of more than 2,600 planet discoveries from outside our solar system, many of which could be promising places for life.

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An astrophysicist claims he finally figured out time travel

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Time travel has been one of the biggest tropes in science fiction for years. But what if you could actually go back in time and visit a loved one before their death? There’s, obviously, a lot we don’t know about what kind of consequences time travel might bring to the table , but that hasn’t stopped physicist Ron Mallet from a lifelong obsession with trying to figure out the time travel equation.

What’s even more impressive about this lifelong endeavor, though, is that Mallet now claims to have solved the equation and figured out how to build an actual time machine. Mallet’s inspiration and obsession with time travel originally began when he was much younger, Earth.com notes . Following the death of his beloved father, Mallet lost himself in novels, including The Time Machine by H.G. Wells.

It is certainly a respectable goal, especially for anyone who has lost someone they loved dearly. Mallet says that his idea of a time machine centers around an “intense and continuous rotating beam of light” that can manipulate gravity. A device built by him, following his equation, would use a ring of lasers to mimic the effects of a black hole, which appears to distort space and time around them.

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Of course, learning the time travel equation and building a working time machine are two different things altogether. Sure, scientists have simulated black holes in a lab once or twice, but never anything with the kind of power or reality-effecting pull that Mallet seems to think would make time travel possible. That isn’t to say that he’s got things wrong, though.

His equation for time travel may be exactly what is needed to break through this lifelong obsession and actually travel back in time. But building something capable of testing it is going to be a whole separate endeavor in and of itself.

This article talks about:

Josh Hawkins has been writing for over a decade, covering science, gaming, and tech culture. He also is a top-rated product reviewer with experience in extensively researched product comparisons, headphones, and gaming devices.

Whenever he isn’t busy writing about tech or gadgets, he can usually be found enjoying a new world in a video game, or tinkering with something on his computer.

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roam around space perspective’s neptune capsule and lounge design before its flight in 2025

Inside space perspective’s capsule with dan window.

Dan Window pulls up the image of the Space Perspective’s Neptune capsule’s interior during his interview with designboom . The aerial view looks like an hourglass: a crescent-shaped white pathway in the middle, while eight dark-blue plush seats facing the windows fill in the spaces on the side. The Head of Experience Design tells designboom that he and the design team tried out a different setup at the beginning.

Since the Neptune capsule has a round interior, they placed a lamp at the center of the space and the eight seats surrounding it, all facing outward. It restricted the space. Passengers would walk around in circles, as if following a leaderless cult, and in a six-hour flight, it might make them feel like space traveling in a limbo, around an endless loop, with no way out of space. ‘By creating these two semi-circular arch lounges, it does two things: it pulls the people a little bit back from the windows, creating a lot of legroom in front of the seats so they can stretch their legs out and be relaxed, and it also allows the standing space at the windows for them to get up and stand around in this space,’ Dan Window shares with designboom.

The split is made, giving birth to two lounges. On each side, four seats are facing the vertical, panoramic windows. These chairs are positioned to follow the curve of the floor, making two seats adjacent to each other. There’s a space between every two seats, allowing for a passageway, so the passengers can walk around the entire Space Perspective’s capsule, strolling around with ease, soaking up the views, enjoying the flight out to the earth with drinks in their hands.

Excelsior is neptune’s test capsule

Space Perspective has already unveiled the interior of their Neptune space capsule through their test build, Excelsior . The design team says it can accommodate up to nine people, including the pilot, taking them all for commercial space travel beginning 2025. Dan Window paints the picture as to how the interior can fit all the passengers while giving them enough room to roam around, socialize, and stretch. As soon as they enter the door leading inside the cabin, they find a single seat for the pilot, who is walled in two aluminum cabinets, one beside them and the other adjacent to it.

These cabinets serve both as the division of the space and what Dan Window calls the ‘bar area.’ ‘This area down here is where drinks and food are prepared. You have windows around here, so you can walk through to the bar, stand at the bar, and have conversations with someone sitting in another seat,’ Dan Window explains to designboom. The setting creates a laidback and open space rather than a regimented, forced, and individualistic design where each passenger is facing their own window. Across the pilot’s seat, the finish line of the white curved pathway, the passengers find the spa bathroom, a room to relieve themselves when they’ve had enough drinks or just enjoy a brief respite within a luminous yellow nook.

Mini biosphere design outside of earth

Around the quaint interior of the Neptune capsule, plants pop up, growing in pots or crawling around the walls with their tendrils and healthy stems. Dan Window says their presence is drawn from the experience of Space Perspective’s founders, Jane Poynter and Taber MacCallum. They were part of Biosphere 2, a research facility that encased eight participants in a glass structure to understand and study how human-made ecosystems could be replicated. ‘They had to grow all of their own crops, and create their own atmosphere and environment. That’s where the founders of Space Perspective met, and I guess that’s the start of their journey,’ Dan Window tells designboom.

The plants inside the Neptune space capsule nod to the grow-your-own-plants atmosphere that the founders lived in. In a way, Space Perspective may be bringing it back for space travel tourism, a mini biosphere that’s conducive for passengers, floating above until it exits out of Earth. Other objects inside the space capsule can induce a domestic feel to the travel, as if the passengers never left their lands in the first place. The familiar lounge, the plants, the drinks, the carpets, the textiles, the lighting design. There’s nothing harsh-looking, as Dan Window puts it; the interior is familiar and may be natural. It strips off any aseptic visuals that might propel passengers to think they’re astronauts rather than travelers.

Dan Window brings us back to the chairs’ designs, segmented with long capsule-shaped cushioning. They’re twinned up as pairs to encourage the passengers to speak with the others, and adjoining them is an mini wooden table that can double as a desk. Below this tabletop surface, there are fold-out leaves that rotate out to dock a small dish that passengers can hold in their hand and place your glass nearby, extending the tabletop to accommodate more objects. ‘This concept goes against the typical idea of an airline flight with a big meal service, numerous containers, and complexity. We’re aiming for something very different and contemporary—exciting small bites of food served at regular intervals throughout the flight,’ Dan Window explains to designboom.

Dark palettes enshrine the colors of the space capsule’s lounges, contrasted by the light hue of the pathway between the entrance, the pilot’s seat and bar, and the toilet. In this part of Space Perspective’s Neptune, the lush carpet is luxurious and soft. Passengers can take off their shoes and just be in their socks, making them feel at home. Yet the choice to imbue these parts with dark palettes is because of the intensity of the lights coming from the windows. They’re strong, as Dan Window shares with designboom. By going for this dark-blue shade, they avoid lots of reflections and bright white surfaces that reflect back into the window. And by making the space lounges dark, muted, and tactile, they complement the glossier and textured entrance area and the rest of the space capsule.

Parachute inside neptune capsule for emergencies?

Underneath the seats, a silver glint can catch the passengers’ attention. At first, they seem to be parachutes for emergency landings, but the Head of Experience Design says it is for storage. The idea is for every passenger to have their own small, soft bag to stow their personal items up to a certain volume. It fits the shape of the chair, so bulky items are not cut out on board. A curious case for emergency designs comes through, and Dan Window shows designboom the exterior image with the space balloon anchoring the Space Perspective’s capsule.

It is the capsule itself and its rigging that include parachutes as part of the system and a backup in case of failure. ‘Safety is our top priority, and every component of the project is designed with high safety standards in mind. The entire system is kept as simple as possible to reduce the risk of failure. The parachutes are integrated into the system, but it’s important to clarify that passengers do not wear them for jumping out. That’s not part of the experience,’ says the Head of Experience Design. Outside the Excelsior’s space capsule, the test build of the Neptune vessel, Dan Window points out that their color scheme is limited to chrome or white.

It’s only these paints that can meet the temperature requirements of the space capsule, which can help reduce the solar energy, thus the heat coming into the Neptune vessel. The designer adds that ‘we have a chrome band through the center. The chrome band reflects whatever is outside. So, when it’s dark inside, it reflects dark, and when it’s bright with the doors open, it reflects light outside. Rendering the capsule in space has been challenging because the chrome band always looks dark against the blackness of space, even though it’s actually chrome. It’s always a challenge to capture.’

Developing the paint for the exterior of the Space Perspective capsule is only a challenge that the design team has to conquer. For Dan Window, they sang the victory chant once they got over the design for the splash cone, the triangular shape underneath the space capsule that helps with the landing once the passengers’ travel time is over. It has been developed to penetrate the water, slow down the descent of the capsule, and control its buoyancy as water vehicles zip through the sea to meet the passengers and take them back to the launching vessel waiting nearby.

‘It acts like a sea anchor to create stability in the water. We experimented with different lengths and shapes of the cone, as well as multiple spheres at the bottom of the capsule. We tried wild and wacky iterations to see what would work best. As aesthetic designers, we were relieved to settle on something simplistic, minimal, and geometric. Some of our initial designs looked crazy, but we weren’t sure what would meet the technical requirements. For us, as the exterior designers, minimizing the visual impact of the cone compared to everything else was the most challenging aspect,’ Dan Window opens up to designboom.

Vertical windows for neptune capsule design

The Head of Experience Design turned to the vertical windows of the Space Perspective capsule. The landscape orientation is traded with pillars of consecutive glasses to avoid distorted or stereoscopic vision and align well with the Neptune capsule’s internal structure. Inside the vessel, there are ribs that align with the window frames. The design team had to calculate the ideal surface area for the windows, considering factors like solar radiation and energy intake, before they could determine the window’s height, width, and position.

The result can let standing passengers have a clear view outside without oversized windows, all the while offering them an uninterrupted view around the capsule. Soon enough, these transparent glasses win over Dan Window, one of his favorites in a series of design features of the Neptune capsule. ‘The windows themselves are very technical and highly engineered with special coatings and manufacturing techniques. It may not seem like a standout feature, but it’s actually the most important aspect of the entire design—it’s all about the experience,’ he explains to designboom.

spa bathroom view

New form of tourism from Space perspective

Dan Window used to work in the transportation industry before transitioning to space travel design. He interned at Ford Design and joined PriestmanGoode where he spent 16 years of his career. In the process, he has designed high-end aircraft interiors, bullet trains for China, and exterior design systems like the Hyperloop and the new Tube for London. Today, he’s the Head of Experience Design for Space Perspective as well as its Neptune capsule. For him, it’s not a big change. It’s all about transport. It’s different from designing cars, with the capsule featuring a geometric spherical shape, but the fundamental principles in design remain the same.

‘Spacecraft design is highly technical and engineered, with a strong emphasis on meeting specific requirements. Unlike car design, which heavily focuses on exterior styling, our role is to ensure the capsule looks its best while meeting stringent engineering demands. For example, the capsule’s exterior must withstand extreme conditions like solar radiation, limiting our choice of materials and colors. This contrasts with car design, where options are more varied,’ the designer shares with designboom.

Looking forward, he admits that space travel design is a new system that’s now at the forefront of tourism. Democratizing and making it more accessible to the public are some of the goals Space Perspective is looking into, and Dan Window tells designboom that ‘when compared to the competition, it’s cheaper, so that can allow people to be introduced to space travel. We have 7,000 pre-sold tickets, which is obviously a huge number in terms of potential people going up into space, and I think overall it’s only going to become more accessible. In this capsule, people will be spending longer lengths in space compared to the journey.’

vertical windows for out-of-Earth views

project info:

name: Neptune / Excelsior capsule

company: Space Perspective

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Scientists catch real-life Death Star devouring a planet in 1st-of-its-kind discovery

The action 12,000 light-years away may presage what happens to Earth about 5 billion years from now.

Astronomers may have for the first time witnessed a sun-like star devouring a planet, shedding light on the fate that will befall Earth in about four billion years when our dying sun swells to engulf our world, a new study finds.

By analyzing countless stars during various stages of their evolution, astronomers have discovered that as our sun and stars like it near the ends of their lives, they begin to exhaust their primary source of fuel, the hydrogen near their cores. This leads their cores to contract and their outer shells to expand and cool. During this " red giant " phase, these stars may billow out anywhere from 100 to 1,000 times their original diameter, swallowing closely orbiting planets.

"We know that this must happen to all planets that are orbiting at distances smaller than that of the Earth , but it was considered extremely challenging to provide experimental evidence for this," study lead author Kishalay De, an astrophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told Space.com.

Related: Earth's sun: Facts about the sun's age, size and history

For decades, scientists have detected evidence of stars just before and shortly after the act of consuming planets . However, researchers had never caught a star in the act until now, De explained.

"Honestly, one of the biggest surprises for me was that we found it in the first place," De said in an email. "Planetary engulfment has been a fundamental prediction in our understanding of stars and planets, but their frequency have been very uncertain. So finding a potentially rare event for the first time is always exciting."

In the new study, De and his colleagues made their breakthrough after examining a burst of radiation dubbed ZTF SLRN-2020, which took place in 2020 in the Milky Way 's disk about 12,000 light-years away, near the constellation Aquila. During the event, a star brightened by a factor of 100 over the course of a week.

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"The work started back in 2020 when I was not looking for this type of event, actually," De said. "I was looking for a much more common type of outburst called novae." Novas are stellar explosions that can happen when a red giant pours fuel onto a companion white dwarf star.

The initial discovery was made by analyzing data collected by the Zwicky Transient Facility, run at the California Institute of Technology's Palomar Observatory. The Zwicky Transient Facility scans the sky for stars that rapidly change in brightness, which could be events such as novas.

To learn more about ZTF SLRN-2020, De analyzed the spectrum of light from the bright outburst. "That's when I was surprised to see that unlike a nova, which has hot gas around it, this source was primarily surrounded by cool gas," he said. 

Cool gas from such bursts often results from merging stars, De explained. When he followed up by looking at data from the same star collected by the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, he also found molecules that can only exist at very cold temperatures.

Cold gas can condense to form dust over time. About a year after the initial discovery, De and his colleagues analyzed data from the same star, this time collected using an infrared camera at the Palomar Observatory. Infrared data can yield signals of colder material, in contrast to bright visible light signals that often come from novas and other powerful events.

The scientists found the brief outburst of visible light from the star was accompanied by extraordinarily bright near-infrared light signals that slowly faded over the course of six months. This confirmed De's suspicion "that this source had indeed formed a lot of dust," he said.

The final piece of the puzzle came when the researchers examined data collected by NASA's infrared space telescope, NEOWISE . This suggested the total amount of energy the star released since its initial outburst was surprisingly small — about a thousandth the magnitude of any stellar merger observed in the past. 

"That means that whatever merged with the star has to be 1,000 times smaller than any other star we've seen," De said in a statement . "And it's a happy coincidence that the mass of Jupiter is about one-thousandth the mass of the sun. That's when we realized: This was a planet, crashing into its star."

Related: Scientists get gruesome look at how stars like our sun eat their own planets

— When will the sun die?

— Telescopes watch the sun bake a comet to death

— Will our solar system survive the death of our sun?

Based on the nature of the outburst, the astronomers estimated the event released hydrogen equal to about 33 times the Earth's mass , as well as about 0.33 Earth-masses of dust. From this, they suggest the progenitor star was about 0.8 to 1.5 times the mass of our sun and the engulfed planet was about 1 to 10 times the mass of Jupiter.

Earth is expected to meet a similar fate when the sun becomes a red giant in about 5 billion years.

"If I was sitting on a planet 10,000 light years away, I would basically see a similar flash of light from the solar system — a bit subdued compared to this one because the Earth is much less massive than a planet like Jupiter, which is what we believe was involved in this event — which puts the significance of this discovery into a human perspective," De said.

There are many questions this discovery raises. "Did the planet survive the plunge, or did it get annihilated into the stellar material during the plunge?" De said. "Did the planet come into contact with the stellar surface because of the star's natural expansion, or did something give it an ever-so-slight push to go close to the star? All these questions will become clear as we get more data on this object and find more events in the future."

Now that scientists know what planetary engulfment likely looks like, "we can look for similar events in the future, especially as infrared surveys become increasingly common in the next decade," De said. "We can also go back into this system and see what the star looks like. Was it polluted by the planet? Was it spun up because of the energetic eruption? More importantly, the data itself provides a foundational starting point for theory to try and understand how planets themselves affect their host stars."

The scientists detailed their findings online today (May 3) in the journal Nature.

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Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Charles Q. Choi is a contributing writer for Space.com and Live Science. He covers all things human origins and astronomy as well as physics, animals and general science topics. Charles has a Master of Arts degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia, School of Journalism and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of South Florida. Charles has visited every continent on Earth, drinking rancid yak butter tea in Lhasa, snorkeling with sea lions in the Galapagos and even climbing an iceberg in Antarctica. Visit him at http://www.sciwriter.us

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• Marcd2k Very interesting article, I've read many times about our Sun expanding out to Earth's orbit, swallowing the first three planets as it dies. My only issue with this article (I'm very nit-picky, former proofreader) was the back and forth when mentioning the time-frame for our Sun to swallow Earth. The article started at 5 billion years, then changed to 4 billion years, then back to 5 billion years at then end. Reply
• visaaaaaaaa Didnt we see a death star destroy a planet a long time ago in a galaxy far far away? Reply
• Atlan0001 Five billion years away. That is if nothing jolts our star to do the dirty deed much sooner than later. Hopefully life will have long birthed and grown out from the Earth into the universe before the day comes. Reply
• View All 3 Comments

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Why does NASA want a time zone on the moon?

NASA has been tasked with determining a standard time zone for the moon, but it’s more complicated than you might think.

The United States government has tasked its space agency, NASA, with establishing a standard time zone for the moon, which will be known as Coordinated Lunar Time (CLT).

In a memo issued on April 2, the US Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) stated: “Federal agencies will develop celestial time standardisation with an initial focus on the lunar surface and missions operating in Cislunar space [the area within the moon’s orbit], with sufficient traceability to support missions to other celestial bodies.” “Traceability” means that CLT can be kept in sync with time zones on Earth.

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The memo outlined the following features for the new CLT:

• Traceability to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC – a compromise for both English and French speakers);
• Accuracy sufficient to support precision navigation and science;
• Resilience to loss of contact with Earth (meaning CLT can operate independently of Earth); and
• Scalability to space environments beyond the Earth-moon system (meaning other space stations beyond the moon would be able to use CLT as well).

Don’t expect your favourite time zone and calendar apps to have CLT as an option yet; NASA has until the end of 2026 to establish CLT.

Why does the moon need its own time zone?

In layman’s terms, we need a reliable “lunar time” earth-syncing system because lower gravity on the moon causes time to move slightly faster there than on Earth – by just 58.7 microseconds (there are 1 million microseconds in a single second) faster within every 24 Earth hours.

This is not science fiction, even though it is a main feature of Hollywood blockbusters such as Interstellar. Known as “gravitational time dilation”, the passage of time is impacted by gravity.

Although small, these time discrepancies can cause issues with syncing satellites and space stations in lunar orbit.

An unnamed OSTP official told Reuters: “Imagine if the world wasn’t syncing their clocks to the same time – how disruptive that might be and how challenging everyday things become.”

How would we tell time on the moon?

Earth uses UTC or Coordinated Universal Time to sync time zones around the world. UTC is determined by more than 400 atomic clocks that are maintained in national “time laboratories” in about 30 countries around the world. An atomic clock uses the vibrations of atoms to achieve extreme precision in keeping track of time.

Similar atomic clocks would be placed on the moon to get an accurate time reading.

Known as Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT), this precision-timing system allows communications systems to measure and keep accurate timing. The Ordnance Survey, the British organisation that has been producing maps since 1791, explains that PNT has three core elements:

• Positioning – the ability to precisely determine one’s location and orientation, predominantly two dimensionally on a printed map, although three-dimensional orientation can be determined when required.
• Navigation – the ability to determine both the current and desired position (either relative or absolute), and apply corrections to course, orientation and speed to reach a desired position from anywhere in the world, from sub-surface (below the Earth’s surface) to surface, and from surface to space.
• Timing – the ability to maintain accurate and precise time from anywhere in the world.

Does NASA have plans for time zones in other parts of outer space?

Although there has been no mention of time zones on other planets, in 2019, NASA’s Deep Space Atomic Clock (DSAC) mission tested an atomic clock to improve spacecraft navigation in deep space. The DSAC mission, on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, was launched on June 22, 2019. The rocket tested the atomic clock in Earth’s orbit for one year.

Typically, spacecraft keep accurate time by bouncing signals to atomic clocks on Earth and then the signal is sent back to the spacecraft. In this mission, the on-board atomic clock was tested to keep precise time without relying on this two-way communication between the spacecraft and the atomic clocks on Earth. The accuracy of the timing is tied to getting accurate positioning, while helping the spacecraft reach the intended location in space successfully.

As NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the centre for robotic exploration of the solar system, explains: “A two-way system that sends a signal from Earth to a spacecraft, back to Earth and then to the spacecraft again would take an average of 40 minutes. Imagine if the GPS on your phone took 40 minutes to calculate your position. You might miss your turn or be several exits down the highway before it caught up with you. If humans travel to the Red Planet [Mars], it would be better if the system was one-way, allowing the explorers to immediately determine their current position rather than waiting for that information to come back from Earth.”

The mission successfully ended in 2021, with the on-board atomic clock maintaining the correct timing and navigational positioning.