Hubble Space Telescope imagery Neptune has revealed that the planet's clouds are disappearing.
Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
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00:00Recent observations from the Hubble Space Telescope show that Neptune's
00:05clouds are almost completely disappearing. Astronomers report that their
00:09continual monitoring of Neptune's weather uncovered a link between its
00:14shifting cloud abundance and the 11-year solar cycle in which the Sun's entangled
00:19magnetic fields drive solar activity. When activity on the Sun increases, more
00:25intense ultraviolet radiation floods the solar system. Astronomers found that two
00:31years after the solar cycle's peak, the number of clouds on Neptune increases.
00:37The link between Neptune and the Sun's activity is surprising to planetary
00:41astronomers because Neptune is the outermost major planet where sunlight is
00:461 900th the intensity Earth receives. To monitor the evolution of Neptune's
00:52appearance, astronomers analyzed Hubble Space Telescope archival observations
00:57beginning in 1994, Keck Observatory images taken from 1994 to 2022, and Lick
01:06Observatory data from 2018 to 2019. The combined data will enable further
01:13investigations into the physics and chemistry that lead to Neptune's dynamic
01:18appearance, which in turn may help deepen astronomers' understanding not
01:22only of Neptune, but also of planets beyond our solar system.