An international team of astronomers has recorded mysterious fluctuations in Neptune’s overall temperature, followed by a sharp warming of the south pole. The findings of the study are published in The Planetary Science Journal.
Experts analyzed infrared images of the most distant planet in the solar system, which were obtained over 17 years. It turned out that, despite the onset of summer on Neptune, most of the planet has cooled significantly over the past 20 years. The planet’s average temperature dropped eight degrees Celsius from 2003 to 2018. Summer on Neptune lasts 165 Earth years, and astronomers expected that with its arrival, the temperature of the planet would slowly increase, not decrease. In addition, the warming at the South Pole also raised a number of questions from scientists, as temperatures rose by 11 degrees Celsius between 2018 and 2020. Astronomers have never seen such a significant warming before.
So far, researchers have not figured out the causes of temperature anomalies on Neptune. It is assumed that they could be chemical changes in the stratosphere, random weather events or solar cycles. In the future, additional studies are planned, in particular, with the use of more powerful space telescopes, such as the James Webb telescope.
