Well, let me tell you, this whole Neptune thing, it’s a big deal. That Neptune cost, it ain’t like buyin’ a sack of potatoes at the market, no sir. It’s way more than that. This thing, it’s out there in the sky, real far away. They call it a planet, like our Earth, but it’s different. Much, much bigger, I reckon. And blue, like a robin’s egg, but bigger, much bigger.
Now, how much does this Neptune cost? Lord have mercy, it’s a lot. More than all the money I ever seen, that’s for sure. We talkin’ about, like, more money than there are stars in the sky. It would make your head spin, it is so much money. Trillions, they say. What’s a trillion? It’s a whole heap of money, I can tell you that much. More than you can fit in a hundred barns, maybe more!
They say this Neptune is made of ice, but not like the ice we get in winter. It’s a special kind of ice, way out there in space. And it’s got water, but not like the water in our well. It’s all mixed up with other stuff, like, uh, ammonia, whatever that is. Sounds like somethin’ you’d clean with, but I don’t know.
- This Neptune, it’s real far.
- It takes a long, long time to get there.
- Years and years, longer than I’ve been alive!
- It’s like walkin’ to the next county, but a thousand times further.
And this big blue ball, it goes around the sun, just like we do. But it takes its sweet time. They say it takes, like, 165 of our years for it to go around just once! Can you imagine? A year that long? Why, I’d be older than dirt by the time it was over!
They say one fella discovered this Neptune planet, name of Johann somethin’, way back in 1846. That’s a long time ago, before I was even a twinkle in my daddy’s eye. And they say he used some other fellas ideas to find it. It is like tryin’ to find a needle in a haystack, except the haystack is the whole sky!
And get this, they got rings around this Neptune, like those rings you put on your finger, only these are made of, I don’t know, space dust or somethin’. Six of ’em, they say. Can you imagine that? Six rings around a giant blue ball of ice. It’s somethin’ else, I tell ya.
They got a name for this Neptune thing, an “ice giant.” Sounds kinda scary, don’t it? But it’s just a name, I suppose. Like callin’ a big dog “Killer” even though he’s gentle as a lamb. And they say it’s like a gas giant, but not really. It’s all that ice and water, all mixed up in a big soup, kind of. It’s confusing, all this space talk. They say one year on the Neptune is about 165 years on the earth.
Now, about that Neptune cost again. They say our Earth is worth a lot, somethin’ called quadrillions. That’s even more than trillions! It’s like countin’ grains of sand on the beach, I reckon. You’d never get done! Well, this Neptune, it’s gotta be worth even more than that. It’s so big and far away, it must cost a fortune just to get there, let alone do anythin’ with it.
I heard some folks talkin’ ’bout goin’ to Neptune. They call it a mission, like goin’ on a long journey. But this ain’t no ordinary journey. This is a trip to the outer reaches of, well, everythin’. And it ain’t gonna be cheap. They’re gonna need a big ol’ spaceship, and lots of food and, I don’t know, space suits and all that. It is said that a single Neptune cost for a mission may be in the trillions of dollars.
- It’s like buildin’ a whole town, just to go to Neptune.
- It is all those fancy machines and computers and whatnot.
- It’s enough to make your head spin, just thinkin’ about it.
So, yeah, that Neptune cost, it’s somethin’ else. It’s more money than any of us regular folks will ever see. It’s up there with the moon and the stars, somethin’ to dream about, but not somethin’ to worry your head over. We got enough to worry about right here on Earth, I reckon. But it’s sure interestin’ to think about, ain’t it? This big blue Neptune, way out there, costin’ more than all the tea in China.
I heard that this Neptune has a weird moon. It is called Triton. It’s interestin’. But for common people like us, we don’t need to think too much about it. After all, it is too far away from us.
