Scientists discovered mysterious fluctuations in Neptune's temperatures that have them scratching their heads.
on the planet. Now, though, fluctuations in Neptune’s temperatures have raised even more questions about the planet.on the changes. In the study, the scientists compiled over 17 years’ worth of Neptune’s temperature readings. Instead of warming up, though, the astronomers noticed that the temperature dropped a global average of 8 degrees Celsius between 2003 and 2018.
“This change was unexpected,” Michael Roman, a planetary scientist from the University of Leicester in the UK shared in a. “Since we have been observing Neptune during its early southern summer, we expected temperatures to be slowly growing warmer, not colder.” Of course, gathering data about Neptune’s temperatures isn’t easy. A big part of that is because of how far away the planet is from Earth. Additionally, the technique we use to study it has only been around since the turn of the century. As such, we have a limited pool of data to build off of. Currently, astronomers use the VLT Imager and Spectrometer for mid-Infrared to gather temperate-based information.. It reads temperature based on the level of infrared light emission.
Because the temperature changes are so extreme, astronomers aren’t really sure what caused the fluctuations. However, they say it could be due to changes in the planet’s stratospheric chemistry. Random weather patterns, or even the planet’s solar cycle, could be behind the changes. Unfortunately, there are a lot of possible reasons that Neptune’s temperatures have been fluctuating. If they want to find the answer, astronomers say they will need to observe the planet even more in the coming years.Josh Hawkins fell in love with writing and technology at a young age. Eventually he decided to combine the two and started writing about video games, the latest tech, and all the cool gadgets he could find.