Neptune
Neptune names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below. 1 of them is described by more than one encyclopedia.
Neptune the outermost of the known planets
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
the outermost of the known planets. Named for the Roman god, Neptune. According to Bode's Law, stated in the article on PLANETS, a new planet was to be expected beyond Saturn. The behaviour of Uranus also indicated the presence of a disturbing influence. An astronomer in Paris computed the probable size and position of the planet and wrote a friend in the Observatory of Berlin when and where to look and what to look for. As the result a new planet was discovered September 23, 1846, and the claim of astronomy as an exact science was strengthened. As a matter of fact Jupiter is not so far from the sun as Bode's Law would require, and it has been suggested that the breaking down of Bode's Law indicates that Neptune is the last planet and that no planetary bodies exist beyond its orbit. Neptune is so far from the sun that a person on Neptune could not see the sun clearly. It would seem smaller than Venus does to us. At that distance the light of the sun must be dim,--midway between our sunlight and moonlight. Although the volume is fifty-three times that of the earth, Neptune is so far from us that it cannot be seen except with a telescope. Neptune has one satellite. See Planet This working backward from the perturbations experienced by Uranus to the cause which produced them is justly regarded as one of the greatest scientific achievements of the human intellect, and is worthy of note that we are approaching the time at which it may be repeated, for Neptune now behaves much as did Uranus three quarters of a century ago, and the most plausible explanation which can be offered for these anomalies in its path is that the bounds of the solar system must be again enlarged to include another disturbing planet.--Comstock, 1901.
Neptune in Roman mythology
Described by 2 of the 6 encyclopedias.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
in Roman mythology, the fabled god of the sea; the son of Saturn and Rhea, and the brother of Jupiter and Pluto. He is generally with the Greek Poseidon and dented ously represented; sometimes with a trident in his right hand, a dolphin in his left, and with one of his feet resting on part of a ship; at others in a chariot drawn by sea-horses, with a triton on each side. He was said to preside over horses and the manger. In astronomy, a planet, the most remote of any yet discovered. The diameter of Neptune is nearly 35,000 miles Its density is only a fifth that of the earth, its mean distance from the 2,792,000,000 miles, and its year 165 times as long as one of ours. Mr. Lassell discovered that it has one satellite.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
the Roman god of the sea, corresponding to the Greek Poseidon. In art, Neptune is represented as a stately, bearded man carrying a trident in token of sovereignty over the sea. Ofttimes he rides in a seagoing chariot drawn by dolphins and surrounded by monsters of the deep. See Poseidon
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When Aiton's wrote in 1910 that Neptune was "the outermost of the known planets" with a single satellite, that was the whole picture; Lassell's Triton, found weeks after the planet itself in 1846, was the only moon known. Clyde Tombaugh's discovery of Pluto in 1930 briefly displaced Neptune from the outer edge, until Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006 and Neptune became the outermost planet again. Voyager 2's flyby in August 1989 transformed the entry: it revealed faint rings, a Great Dark Spot, the coldest measured surface in the solar system on Triton, and further moons, of which sixteen are now known. Voyager also corrected Neptune's mass, which dissolved the orbital "anomalies" that Comstock in 1901 thought pointed to yet another planet beyond it, and Collier's 1921 diameter of "nearly 35,000 miles" is now measured at about 30,600 miles. The Roman sea-god of the same entry needs no revision at all.
Written for this edition, 2026.