An unprecedented analysis of changes in the temperature of Neptune has revealed something rather strange taking place at the most distant planet in our Solar System.
Far-flung Neptune, which orbits the Sun at about 30 times the distance of Earth, takes an accordingly long time to make its trek around the star: about 165 Earth years, in fact, meaning each season on Neptune lasts for over 40 Earth years.Right now, Neptune's southern hemisphere is in the midst of an epic four-decade-long summer, but for reasons scientists can't fully explain, the temperature hasn't exactly been warming up – at least not in the gradual way we might assume.
It's actually only been possible to get such readings since the turn of the century, with the advent of sensitive infrared measurements on newer space telescopes. One of those is The results – representing the largest compilation yet of currently available ground-based imaging of Neptune in the mid-infrared spectrum – suggest that temperatures in Neptune's stratosphere cooled over much of the study period, although a late burst in emission between 2018 and 2020 suggests the atmosphere then rapidly warmed by about 11 °C in the space of just two years.
"While methane absorbs sunlight and warms the atmosphere, photochemically produced hydrocarbons – primarily ethane and acetylene – are powerful infrared emitters that serve to cool the stratosphere," the researchers explain in their paper.
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