Go Back
New storm threatens California with strong winds, power outages, more flooding. Follow live updates. Chevron right

Ashburn, VA

62°F
Chevron down
Use Current Location
Recent

Ashburn

Virginia

62°
No results found.
Try searching for a city, zip code or point of interest.
settings
Ashburn, VA Weather
Today WinterCast Local {stormName} Tracker Hourly Daily Radar MinuteCast Monthly Air Quality Health & Activities

Around the Globe

Hurricane Tracker

Severe Weather

Radar & Maps

News

News & Features

Astronomy

Business

Climate

Health

Recreation

Sports

Travel

Video

Podcasts

Winter Center

News & Features AccuWeather Prime Astronomy Business Climate Health Recreation Sports Travel

News / Astronomy

17-year Neptune study reveals surprising temperature changes

The study's astronomers have been fixated on the summertime season that's occurred in the planet's southern hemisphere since 2005.

By Ashley Williams, UPI,

Published Apr 15, 2022 10:50 AM EDT | Updated Apr 15, 2022 10:50 AM EDT

Copied

Partner Content

UPI

April 11 (UPI) -- The heating-and-cooling changes of Neptune's atmospheric and global temperatures have caught the attention of the astronomers who have monitored them over 17 years, a study released Monday shows.

The expert international team spent nearly two decades keeping a close watch on the gaseous planet's temperatures using ground-based telescopes, including the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope.

The image of the planet Neptune on the left was obtained during the testing of the Narrow-Field adaptive optics mode of the MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. The image on the right is a comparable image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Note that the two images were not taken at the same time so do not show identical surface features. Photo by ESO/P. Weilbacher (AIP)/NASA, ESA, and M.H. Wong and J. Tollefson/UC Berkeley

What they found reveals an "unexpected" drop in Neptune's global temperatures followed by its south pole dramatically warming up, according to the study published in the Planetary Science Journal.

"Since we have been observing Neptune during its early southern summer, we expected temperatures to be slowly growing warmer, not colder," the study's lead author, Michael Roman, a postdoctoral research associate at the United Kingdom's University of Leicester, said in a news release.

While Neptune is like Earth in that its seasons change based on its orbit of the sun, Neptune's seasons last about 40 years, according to the European Southern Observatory.

A single year on Neptune, which is the most distant giant planet from the sun, equals 165 Earth years.

It's about 2.8 billion miles away from Earth.

The study's astronomers have been fixated on the summertime season that's occurred in the planet's southern hemisphere since 2005, closely examining any temperature changes after the summer solstice.

They've pieced together nearly 100 thermal-infrared images of Neptune taken over 17 years to study those trends in deeper detail.

This composite shows thermal images of Neptune taken between 2006 and 2020. The first three images (2006, 2009, 2018) were taken with the VISIR instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope while the 2020 image was captured by the COMICS instrument on the Subaru Telescope (VISIR wasn’t in operation in mid-late 2020 because of the pandemic). After the planet’s gradual cooling, the south pole appears to have become dramatically warmer in the past few years, as shown by a bright spot at the bottom of Neptune in the images from 2018 and 2020. Image by ESO/M. Roman, NAOJ/Subaru/COMICS

They recorded an average global temperature drop of 8 degrees Celsius, or 14.4 degrees Fahrenheit, between 2003 and 2018.

Yet another surprising finding came with the dramatic warming of the eighth planet's south pole during the last two years of observations.

Between 2018 and 2020, experts observed a rapid increase of 11 C, or 19.8 F. It's an unusual finding, as this level of rapid polar warming has never before been observed on Neptune, according to researchers.

"Our data cover less than half of a Neptune season, so no one was expecting to see large and rapid changes," said Glenn Orton, the study's co-author and senior research scientist at Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The astronomers are not yet certain what caused Neptune's unexpected temperature variations.

They plan to continue observing the changes in the coming years.

For the latest weather news check back on AccuWeather.com. Watch the AccuWeather Network on DIRECTV, Frontier, Spectrum, fuboTV, Philo, and Verizon Fios. AccuWeather Now is now available on your preferred streaming platform.

Report a Typo
Comments that don't add to the conversation may be automatically or manually removed by Facebook or AccuWeather. Profanity, personal attacks, and spam will not be tolerated.
Comments
Hide Comments

Weather News

Weather News

Millions of dead fish have washed up in a river in Australia

Mar. 20, 2023
Astronomy

Moon to align with 2 planets this weekend

Mar. 21, 2023
Winter Weather

Snow to bury parts of north-central US in first days of spring

Mar. 21, 2023
Show more Show less Chevron down

Topics

News & Features

AccuWeather Prime

Astronomy

Business

Climate

Health

Recreation

Sports

Travel

Top Stories

Live Blog

LIVE: Incoming storm threatens flooding rain, power outages in Calif.

LATEST ENTRY

High wind warning in effect for San Diego

0 minutes ago

Winter Weather

Intense Pacific storm to hammer Southern, Central California

3 minutes ago

Severe Weather

Severe weather, flooding dangers to span nearly 20 states

4 minutes ago

Weather Forecasts

Warmth to 'spring' into action across eastern US

2 hours ago

Winter Weather

Video shows why you shouldn’t park near Lake Erie shoreline in winter

1 hour ago

More Stories

Featured Topic

Tips to cope with winter weather

Featured Stories

Live Blog

Astronomy news: Californians 'in shock, amazed' at mysterious lights

LATEST ENTRY

Astronomers identify objects that appeared over California

1 day ago

Climate

'The climate time-bomb is ticking,' new UN report warns

20 hours ago

Weather News

Scientists were first who dared to forecast 'an act of God'

AccuWeather Astronomy 17-year Neptune study reveals surprising temperature changes
Company
Proven Superior Accuracy About AccuWeather Digital Advertising Careers Press Contact Us
Products & Services
For Business For Partners For Advertising AccuWeather APIs Podcast RealFeel® and RealFeel Shade™
Apps & Downloads
iPhone App Android App See all Apps & Downloads
Subscription Services
AccuWeather Premium AccuWeather Professional
More
AccuWeather Ready Business Health Hurricane Leisure and Recreation Severe Weather Space and Astronomy Sports Travel Weather News Winter Center
Company
Proven Superior Accuracy About AccuWeather Digital Advertising Careers Press Contact Us
Products & Services
For Business For Partners For Advertising AccuWeather APIs Podcast RealFeel® and RealFeel Shade™
Apps & Downloads
iPhone App Android App See all Apps & Downloads
Subscription Services
AccuWeather Premium AccuWeather Professional
More
AccuWeather Ready Business Health Hurricane Leisure and Recreation Severe Weather Space and Astronomy Sports Travel Weather News Winter Center
© 2023 AccuWeather, Inc. "AccuWeather" and sun design are registered trademarks of AccuWeather, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Cookie Policy | Do Not Sell My Data checkmark Confirmed Not Selling Your Data

We have updated our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy.

I Understand

Get AccuWeather alerts as they happen with our browser notifications.

Notifications Enabled

Thanks! We’ll keep you informed.

FEEDBACK