Astronomers perplexed by plummeting temperatures in Neptune's atmosphere

[Judi Lynn]

By Harry Baker published 1 day ago

An extreme hotspot near the planet's south pole has also appeared.



An image of Neptune captured by Voyager 2 in 1989. New infrared images of the planet has revealed some surprising temperature changes in its atmosphere over the last two decades. (Image credit: NASA/JPL)


Astronomers have discovered a perplexing trend in Neptune's atmosphere: Ever since the planet's southern hemisphere summer began almost two decades ago, atmospheric temperatures in this region have plummeted, and scientists aren't sure why.

Neptune is the most distant planet in the solar system, around 30 times farther from the sun than Earth is. Just like every other planet orbiting the sun, Neptune has four distinct seasons: spring, summer, fall and winter. However, because Neptune takes around 165 years to orbit the sun, each of these seasons lasts around 40 years. Neptune's southern hemisphere has been experiencing summer, the period when it is tilted toward the sun, since 2005.

"This change was unexpected," lead author Michael Roman, an astronomer at the University of Leicester in the U.K., said in a statement. "Since we have been observing Neptune during its early southern summer, we expected temperatures to be slowly growing warmer, not colder."

In a new study, researchers compiled infrared images of Neptune taken by a variety of ground and space based telescopes between 2003 and 2020. The team initially expected that temperatures in Neptune's southern hemisphere would increase as it entered summer. However, the images revealed that atmospheric temperatures in the southern hemisphere had dropped by 14.4 degrees Fahrenheit (8 degrees Celsius) between 2003 and 2018.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/surprising-temperature-changes-on-neptune

[exboyfil]

1. Don't you need a tilt for season?

"Just like every other planet orbiting the sun, Neptune has four distinct seasons: spring, summer, fall and winter."

Mercury wouldn't have any seasons because it has virtually no tilt (I guess you could argue its very slow rotation is effectively seasons but that mechanism is different). Also the eccentricity in the orbit gives you pseudo-seasons (two high points and two low points every year). All in all Mercury, if it was within a liveable zone, would be a most bizarre planet to live on (Game of Thrones bizarre).

Uranus is the most bizarre and extreme with its rotational axis nearly parallel to the orbital plane.

Venus and Jupiter don't have much of a tilt so their seasons are very mild.

[eppur_se_muova]

2. I would think so. But for Mercury, I'd call that literary license. nt

[Sancho]

3. aliens..