The really big surprise came when Voyager 2 reached Neptune. The orientation of Neptune’s rotation axis is similar to that of Earth, Mars, and Saturn. But Neptune’s magneticfield axis is inclined 47° to its rotation axis, and the center of this magnetic field is displaced from the planet’s center by more than half the radius—an offset even greater than that of Uranus (Figure 10.18d). The field is displaced primarily toward Neptune’s southern hemisphere, thereby creating a large asymmetry in the field strength at the cloud tops, with 1.2 gauss in the southern hemisphere and only 0.06 gauss in the north. The overall strength of Neptune’s magnetic field is only half as great as that of Uranus.