It’s your first birthday planet Neptune, and unlike your neighbor Uranus, nobody makes fun of your name, and unlike Pluto, nobody’s going to demote you to “solar object” status because you’re small or whimpy.
Yep, it’s the planet’s discovery’s first anniversary, in Neptune years (164.79 Earth years and obviously 1 153.53 dog years.) Discovered on September 24, 1846, Neptune, also called the ocean planet, has not been a good photo-model. In fact the only decent photos we have, were taken by the Voyager 2 mission in 1989. With cameras from the 1970s and sent to earth using compression from the same decade.
It was the first planet to be discovered mathematically, being spotted first by an aberration in the orbit of Uranus, caused by a predicted object that later turned out to be Neptune. We’re all glad the predicted object didn’t turn out to be Uranus…
Happy birthday old boy!
I’ll drink to that!