We don't know why Neptune's southern hemisphere has been cooling down when it should be heating up.
By Leah Crane.
The thermal images of Neptune were taken by the VISIR instrument.
M. Roman is an officer of the ESO.
The summer on Neptune is cooling down. The temperature in the southern hemisphere has been dropping despite the fact that these measurements were taken in the early part of the summer.
Michael Roman and his colleagues looked at data from several of the world's biggest telescopes to figure out how the temperature of Neptune has changed since the first relatively detailed measurements were made in 2003
Roman says that they expect temperatures to be getting slowly warmer in time because they are observing Neptune.
There was a surprise near the planet's south pole. It takes Neptune more than 165 Earth years to complete a circuit around the sun, so the area warmed by about 11 degrees in the last two years.
There are two different changes in Neptune's atmosphere. The long-term cooling is probably more complicated than that, because the heating on the planet was similar to that seen on other planets.
The view of Neptune captured in August 1989.
Kevin M. Gill is a NASA/JPL-Caltech employee.
It could be related to the 11-year cycle of solar activity, which may affect the chemistry in the planet's atmosphere, or it could be some seasonal process that we don't fully understand.
We have about 100 high-quality pictures of Neptune, and it might be a while before we can figure out what has caused these strange changes in its climate.
The Planetary Science Journal is a journal.
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