According to the latest study published in the Planetary Science Journal’ astronomers said that Neptune has experienced an unexplained shift in temperature. The researchers observe that the expected temperatures on Neptune are slowly growing warmer, rather than getting colder.
According to Glenn Orton, the co-author of the study, a senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, “Our data cover less than half of a Neptune season, so no one was expecting to see large and rapid changes.”
“I think Neptune is itself very intriguing to many of us because we still know so little about it,” said Roman. “This all points towards a more complicated picture of Neptune’s atmosphere and how it changes with time.”
Neptune is the solar system’s most distant planet. With the most powerful zonal winds in the solar system Neptune possesses an extremely dynamic atmosphere. It has an average diameter of approximately 30,600 miles (49,250 km), making it four times wider than the Earth. It takes about 165 Earth years to complete a single orbit around the Sun, a Neptunian year.