Neptune Has Been Slowly Cooling For 15 Years When It Should Be Warming (newscientist.com) 18
Summer on Neptune seems to be cooling down. Observations dating back to 2003 show that the temperature in the planet's southern hemisphere has been dropping, despite the fact that these measurements were taken in the early part of its long summer. New Scientist reports: Michael Roman at the University of Leicester, UK, and his colleagues examined 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. "Because we are observing Neptune in this southern summer, we basically expect temperatures to be getting slowly warmer in time," says Roman. "But what we saw was that they dropped by about 8C" over the course of 15 years, he says. The observations also revealed a surprise near the planet's south pole. Between 2018 and 2020, an area there warmed by about 11C, an unexpectedly rapid change given that it takes Neptune more than 165 Earth years to complete a circuit around the sun. "A season on Neptune is over 40 years long, so we'd expect these changes to be a lot more gradual," says Roman.
However (Score:4, Funny)
Uranus is really heating up.
Re: (Score:2)
That's caused by an increase of sphinctertron radiation.
I knew it! (Score:1)
It's Putin's fault that global warming is affecting Neptune!
Re: (Score:2)
Don't believe it... (Score:3, Funny)
I dunno. The nepture that hit the Moskva was pretty hot.
Neptune is just fine. (Score:3, Informative)
Neptune is doing exactly as it should.
This demonstrates that some theory is wrong and it makes some people look bad.
the end.
Neptune (Score:2)
It's the rare day of multiple Neptune related news
Good luck convincing them. (Score:2)
The Neptunians aren't very likely to believe something just because Earth scientists say it, you know. And more than a quarter of them think climate change is a Uranian hoax anyway.
Ah, the hubris of man (Score:5, Insightful)
Edit:
Neptune has been slowly cooling, while incorrect theory we've previously relied upon led us to believe otherwise.
Re: (Score:2)
Dumb headline sheesh (Score:2)
Scientist observes phenomena.
Scientist goes "huh".
Press: teh planetz r cooling!
doing exactly what it should be doing (Score:5, Insightful)
There's the answer to global warming (Score:2)
Can you imagine? (Score:2)
A season on Neptune is over 40 years long
Can you imagine only experiencing two seasons in your lifetime? Born late summer, only see fall and winter? Born late winter, think the entire world is spring and summer forever?
Re: (Score:3)
Read the Heliconia cycle by Brian Aldiss.
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Winter is coming.
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(See Brian Aldiss reference above.)