How long does it take Neptune to orbit the sun?
Neptune takes 164.79 years to orbit around the Sun. Neptune orbits the Sun at an average distance of 4.5 billion km. That’s the simple answer to the question, what is the orbit of Neptune. However, things are actually a little more complicated than that. Like all the planets in the Solar System, Neptune follows an elliptical path around the Sun, varying its distance to the Sun at different points along its orbit. At its closest point in its orbit, which astronomers call perihelion, Neptune gets within 4.45 billion km, or 29.77 astronomical units (1 astronomical unit or AU is the average distance of the Earth to the Sun). At its most distant point in its orbit, called aphelion, Neptune reaches a distance of 4.55 billion km, or 30.44 astronomical units. One interesting feature about the orbit of Neptune is the fact that Pluto’s very elliptical orbit sometimes brings it closer to the Sun. Back in the days when Pluto was still a planet, it would spend a few decades every orbit closer to th