Visit Neptune, the 8th and farthest planet from the Sun. For this episode, the visualizations of Neptune and its moons were created using real images of the planet and its moons captured by NASA / Jet Propulsion Labs (JPL) at Caltech, projected onto 3D geometry. The planet and moons, and all the distances, are to scale. A minimalist electronic score by Johnny Woods imbues our tour of Neptune with an otherworldly optimism.

10 facts about Neptune to enrich your viewing experience:

1. **Blue Hue**: Neptune's atmosphere gives the planet its beautiful deep blue color. This is because of the presence of methane, which absorbs red light and reflects blue light back into space.

2. **Windiest Planet**: Neptune has the strongest winds of any planet in the Solar System, reaching speeds up to 2,100 kilometers per hour (around 1,300 miles per hour).

3. **Distant Giant**: Neptune is the eighth and farthest planet from the Sun in our Solar System. It is about 30 times as far from the Sun as Earth is. This makes it a cold and dark world, with average temperatures reaching -218 degrees Celsius.

4. **Long Year**: A single year on Neptune (the time it takes to orbit the Sun) lasts 165 Earth years. Neptune was discovered in 1846, so it only completed its first observed orbit in 2011.

5. **Discovery**: Neptune is the only planet in our solar system discovered by mathematical prediction rather than empirical observation. After astronomers noted Uranus wasn't following its predicted path, they proposed that another, unknown planet was influencing its orbit. Using these calculations, Neptune was observed for the first time.

6. **Many Moons**: Neptune has 14 known moons, the largest of which is Triton. Triton is unique because it is one of the only large moons in the Solar System that orbits in the opposite direction of its planet's rotation—called a retrograde orbit.

7. **Rings**: Like the other outer planets in our solar system, Neptune has a system of rings. They are very dark and composed of dust particles coated in ice.

8. **Great Dark Spots**: Neptune features massive storm systems, with the most famous being called the Great Dark Spot, observed by Voyager 2 in 1989. However, when the Hubble Space Telescope looked for the spot in 1994, it was gone, suggesting these storms are transient features that come and go.

9. **Triton**: Neptune's moon Triton is getting closer to the planet it orbits. In about 3.6 billion years, it will get so close that it will be torn apart by Neptune's gravity and could potentially form a spectacular ring system around the planet.

10. **Ice Giant**: Neptune, like Uranus, is classified as an "ice giant" (as opposed to a "gas giant" like Jupiter and Saturn). Its interior is composed of a hot, dense mixture of water, ammonia, and methane over a small rocky core.

Our understanding of Neptune is continually evolving, thanks to ongoing research and missions studying the outer Solar System.