Among the many planets in our Milky Way solar system, Neptune is not the most widely discussed. Neptune is the eighth planet in our solar system and the farthest from the Sun. Neptune, like Uranus, is an ice giant, a subclass of giant planets, because they are smaller and have higher concentrations of volatiles than Jupiter and Saturn. In the search for extrasolar planets, Neptune has been used as a metonym: discovered bodies of similar mass are often called "Neptunes", just as scientists call various extrasolar bodies "Jupiters". Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned"? Get the original essay Like Jupiter and Saturn, Neptune's atmosphere is composed mainly of hydrogen and helium, as well as traces of hydrocarbons and possibly nitrogen, but it contains a higher quantity of hydrogen and helium. proportion of “ices” such as water, ammonia and methane. However, its interior, like that of Uranus, is mostly ice and rock, so Uranus and Neptune are normally considered "ice giants" to emphasize this distinction. Traces of methane in the outermost regions partly explain the blue appearance of the planet. The planet's mantle is equivalent to about 10 to 15 Earth masses and is rich in water, ammonia and methane. As is customary in planetary science, this mixture is called icy even though it is a hot, dense fluid. This fluid, which has high electrical conductivity, is sometimes called the water-ammonia ocean. The mantle may consist of a layer of ionic water in which water molecules break down into a soup of hydrogen and oxygen ions, and deeper of superionic water in which oxygen crystallizes but hydrogen ions float freely in the oxygen network. At a depth of 7,000 km, conditions can be such that methane breaks down into diamond crystals that rain down like hailstones. Ultra-high pressure experiments at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory suggest that the base of the mantle may be an ocean of liquid carbon with floating solid "diamonds." The internal structure of Neptune resembles that of Uranus. Its atmosphere makes up about 5–10% of its mass and extends perhaps 10–20% to the core, where it reaches pressures of about 10 GPa, about 100,000 times that of Earth's atmosphere . Increasing concentrations of methane, ammonia and water are found in the lower regions of the atmosphere. Neptune's weather is characterized by extremely dynamic storm systems, with winds reaching speeds of nearly 600 m/s (2,200 km/h; 1,300 mph), reaching almost supersonic flow. More generally, by tracking the movement of persistent clouds, wind speed has been shown to vary from 20 m/s in an easterly direction to 325 m/s in a westward direction. At the cloud tops, the prevailing wind speed varies from 400 m/s along the equator to 250 m/s at the poles. Most of the winds on Neptune move in a direction opposite to the planet's rotation. The general wind pattern showed a prograde rotation at high latitudes compared to a retrograde rotation at lower latitudes. The difference in flow direction is thought to be a "skin effect" and not due to deeper atmospheric processes. At 70° S latitude, a high-speed jet plane is traveling at a speed of 300 m/s. The relative "hot spot" is due to the axial tilt of Neptune, which exposed the south pole to the Sun during the last quarter of Neptune's year, i.e..