The Mysteries of Neptune
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Voyager 2 had the opportunity to flyby Neptune in 1989. Aside from that, we have never really had a “dedicated” mission to the ice giant. The only real ways for us to study Neptune currently are from Earth, which leads us to have many questions.
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Neptune has the fastest winds in the Solar System at around 1,640 feet per second. This is almost 4 times the speed of Jupiter’s fastest winds.
One mystery is that Neptune’s winds blow in the opposite direction to the rotation of the planet.
But WHY are its winds so fast?
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Believe it or not, Neptune does receive heat from the Sun despite being 2.8 billion miles away from it! Of course, this isn’t enough heat to drastically change its climate. However, there’s something going on inside the planet that allows it to generate more heat than it...
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receives. It even affects weather processes on the planet. There is a large temperature difference between Neptune’s heat source and its cloud tops.
The planet is radiating 25 degrees F more than it should be.
What is this internal source?
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Scientists saw a storm comparable to The Great Red Spot on Jupiter on Neptune’s surface in 1989 during Voyager 2’s flyby. (It was appropriately deemed “The Great Dark Spot”).
In 1995 when the Hubble Space Telescope observed Neptune, the Spot had vanished.
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It is unknown why it vanished. It could have dissipated, but it is not certain how.
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We can’t see into Neptune, so we don’t know what’s taking place in its interior.
A model from 2003 suggests that its atmosphere is composed of hydrogen, helium, and methane.
If there is a core, it would be rocky and icy.
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Saturn and Uranus have distinct ring systems, but Neptune has “chunky” rings, with arcs in the outer ring.
There are clumps where a lot of the ring particles are stuck together.
There may be gravitational influences from small moons might cause this.
However, the...
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location of these arcs changes, but it is a mystery as to why that is.
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Uranus and Neptune both have odd magnetic fields that were off center. Neptune’s magnetic field does not originate from its core like with other planets. It is uncertain what the tilted magnetic field is generated from.
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Hopefully NASA is able to send a probe to observe the ice giants sometime in order to unravel some of these mysteries. (Plus I want better quality pictures of the planets too).
Let me know what you thought!
Do you think NASA should send something to Uranus and Neptune?