Tag Archive for 'Great Dark Spot'

This diagram shows three layers of aerosols in the atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune. The height scale on the diagram represents the pressure above 10 bar. The deepest layer (Aerosol-1 layer) is thick and composed of a mixture of hydrogen sulfide ice and particles produced by the interaction of the planets’ atmospheres with sunlight. The key layer that affects the colors is the middle layer, which is a layer of haze particles (Aerosol-2 layer) that is thicker on Uranus than on Neptune. Irwin et al. suspect that, on both planets, methane ice condenses onto the particles in this layer, pulling the particles deeper into the atmosphere in a shower of methane snow. Because Neptune has a more active, turbulent atmosphere than Uranus does, the team believes Neptune’s atmosphere is more efficient at churning up methane particles into the haze layer and producing this snow. This removes more of the haze and keeps Neptune’s haze layer thinner than it is on Uranus, meaning the blue color of Neptune looks stronger. Above both of these layers is an extended layer of haze (Aerosol-3 layer) similar to the layer below it but more tenuous. On Neptune, large methane ice particles also form above this layer. Image credit: Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / J. da Silva / NASA / JPL-Caltech / B. Jónsson.

Haze Layers are Responsible for Different Blue Hues of Neptune and Uranus, Scientists Say

Jun 1, 2022 by News Staff

An international team of planetary researchers led by University of Oxford scientists has performed an analysis of visible/near-infrared observations of...

This Hubble image of the dynamic blue-green planet Neptune reveals a huge dark storm (top center) and the emergence of a smaller dark spot nearby (top right). The giant vortex, which is wider than the Atlantic Ocean, was traveling south toward certain doom by atmospheric forces at the equator when it suddenly made a U-turn and began drifting back northward. Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) captured this visible-light image on January 7, 2020, the same time a slightly smaller dark spot mysteriously appeared nearby. That spot then vanished a few months later. The smaller feature may have been a piece of the giant storm that broke off as the larger vortex approached the equator. The large storm is the fourth transient dark spot Hubble has observed since 1993. NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft first imaged two dark features in Neptune’s southern hemisphere in 1989 as Voyager flew by the distant planet. Those storms had disappeared by the time Hubble looked at Neptune in 1994. However, Hubble detected two new dark spots in the planet’s northern hemisphere in 1994 and 1996. Image credit: NASA / ESA / STScI / M.H. Wong, University of California, Berkeley / L.A. Sromovsky & P.M. Fry, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Hubble Monitors Weird Dark Vortex on Neptune

Dec 16, 2020 by News Staff

In 2018, astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope spotted a giant dark storm, which is 7,400 km (4,600 miles) across, in the northern hemisphere...

This is a composite picture showing images of storms on Neptune from Hubble (left) and Voyager 2 (right). The Hubble image shows a new dark storm (top center). In the Voyager image, a storm known as the Great Dark Spot is seen at the center. It is about 8,000 miles by 4,100 miles (13,000 km by 6,600 km) in size -- as large along its longer dimension as the Earth. The white clouds seen hovering in the vicinity of the storms are higher in altitude than the dark material. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / GSFC / JPL.

Hubble Captures Formation of Great Dark Spot on Neptune

Mar 26, 2019 by News Staff

A series of images taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope documents the formation of a Great Dark Spot on Neptune for the first time. This is a composite...