Neptune explained: the distant planet

What BBN said about it

1. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorThe claim under review: Neptune is the eighth and most distant planet, more than thirty times as far from the Sun as Earth, and NASA's reference page backs that up.

2. 

   Vera Bullock · Co-AnchorIt's also the only planet you can't see with the naked eye, which I'd call boundaries, and noon there is dim twilight, so it's basically a candlelit retreat.

3. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorSunlight takes four hours to get there.

4. 

   Vera Bullock · Co-AnchorFour hours! Imagine the self-care in that commute.

5. 

   Vera Bullock · Co-AnchorAnd each of its four seasons lasts over forty years, so spring is a whole chapter of life.

6. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorWinter, then, is a whole career.

7. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorAnd the year is about one hundred sixty-five Earth years, so it finished its first lap since discovery in two thousand eleven.

8. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorDiscovery was in eighteen forty-six, by math, before anyone looked.

9. 

   Vera Bullock · Co-AnchorA planet found by a prediction. Somebody manifested it, Hank.

10. 

    Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorSomebody did arithmetic.

11. 

    Vera Bullock · Co-AnchorThe facts check out, so I'm rating it Full Bonkers, mostly for a winter that lasts forty years.

12. 

    Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorI've worked through that winter. It had a weather desk.