Astronomers believe Neptune has undergone an unexpected temperature shift in a recent study published in the Planetary Science Journal.
Because we studied Neptune during the early austral summer, we expected temperatures to gradually become warmer, not cooler,” lead author Michael Roman, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Leicester, said in a statement.
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“Our data covers less than half of a Neptune season, so no one expected to see significant and abrupt shifts,” said study co-author Glenn Orton, a senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The planet Neptune, with seasons reaching 40 years each, should be resilient to climate change, but according to the research it has been cooling dramatically since the start of the Australian summer 17 years ago.
Neptune is the farthest planet from the solar system. It has a very lively atmosphere. The highest clouds on the planet evolve so quickly that the appearance of the planet can radically change within days. It has the most intense zonal breezes in the solar system.
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It is four times the size of Earth, with an average diameter of 30,600 miles (49,250 kilometers). At an average distance of about 2.8 billion miles, Neptune orbits the sun more than 30 times as far as Earth (4.5 billion km). A single orbit around the sun, called a Neptune year, takes about 165 Earth years.
COVER IMAGE:NASA/TWITTER