(Image source: Popular Science)

BY STEVEN SPARKMAN

ANCHOR JIM FLINK

Astronomers are wishing the blue planet Neptune -- Happy Birthday! The planet has completed one full trip around the Sun since its discovery. That’s one Neptune year.

Though a day on Neptune is only 16 hours, it took the planet nearly 165 Earth years to go around the Sun. To celebrate the occasion, the Hubble Space Telescope captured these new images of the planet. (Video source: NASA)

A writer for Popular Science points out, some recent events in the astronomy community mean Neptune gets to celebrate its first birthday in a number one spot.

“Neptune, of course, has a somewhat tumultuous and storied history. It was the most distant planet in our solar system before Pluto was discovered in 1930, pushing Neptune to 8th and second-most-distant. When Pluto was downgraded to a dwarf planet it was again elevated to superlative status.”

Neptune’s discovery is a legend in the astronomy world. It marked a dramatic shift in how planets are discovered. A writer for Space.com sums up the story.

“Neptune is the only planet to have been discovered by mathematics. French astronomer Urbain Le Verrier noticed irregularities in the motions of other planets, and from these perturbations calculated that there must be an eighth planet lurking out beyond Uranus.”

Astronomers then went on to find the planet exactly where the numbers predicted it would be. But before you go thinking this proved math to be superior to telescopes, a writer for Universe Today says the credit for the find almost went to one of the earliest telescope users.

“...in a great twist of irony -- Galileo had actually observed Neptune on December 28, 1612, and again on January 27, 1613, but didn't realize it was a planet. … Given all that we know today, it’s pretty astonishing his limited equipment was able to perceive the blue planet...”

So after one Neptune year of observation, what do we know about it? Unfortunately, a writer for the BBC says -- not much.

“The reason astronomers know so little is because the planet has only been photographed once from close range - on the Voyager 2 mission in 1989. And because its seasons last 40 Earth years, only Neptune's spring and early summer have been closely documented.”

Some of Neptune’s mysteries include -- how does it have enough heat to generate storms when it’s so far away from the Sun, and how were its faint rings formed?