Researchers used Hubble to observe Neptune's clouds to investigate a mystery: why sometimes the planet had plentiful clouds and at other times had barely any.
As distant as it is, orbiting nearly 3 million miles from the sun, we know a surprising amount about the atmosphere and weather conditions on Neptune. Dramatic storms have been observed there including by the Voyager 2 spacecraft which passed by in the 1980s, which saw dark spots surrounded by white clouds of frozen methane. However, astronomers are now faced with a puzzle about these storms and why they seem to be appearing and disappearing over time.
Recommended Videos “Even now, four years later, the most recent images we took this past June still show the clouds haven’t returned to their former levels,” said lead researcher Erandi Chavez of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard-Smithsonian in a statement. “This is extremely exciting and unexpected, especially since Neptune’s previous period of low cloud activity was not nearly as dramatic and prolonged.
“These remarkable data give us the strongest evidence yet that Neptune’s cloud cover correlates with the Sun’s cycle,” said senior researcher Imke de Pater. “Our findings support the theory that the Sun’s UV rays, when strong enough, may be triggering a photochemical reaction that produces Neptune’s clouds.”
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