Unraveling the Mystery: How Solar Activity Affects Clouds on Neptune

JAKARTA – The planet Neptune is known to be filled with clouds in its atmosphere, but it turns out that it is supported by the Sun shining on Earth. Scientists managed to unravel this riddle.

Armed with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the WM Keck Observatory and data from the Lick Observatory, scientists obtained observational data on how solar activity affects the weather on Neptune.

Observations found that sometimes the planet has clouds in its atmosphere and other times almost none. Even in 2019, cloud levels on Neptune dropped dramatically for no reason.

“Even now, four years later, the most recent images we took last June still show the clouds have not returned to their original level,” lead researcher Erandi Chavez of the Center for Astrophysics said in a statement.

“This was very exciting and unexpected, especially since previous periods of low Neptune cloud activity were not as dramatic and prolonged.”

The scientists then found a relationship between the number of clouds and the solar cycle, which is the 11-year activity pattern that the Sun passes through.

At certain times of the year, the number of sunspots and their flares increases, which send more ultraviolet (UV) radiation into the Solar System.

The radiation appears to be affecting the clouds on Neptune, as research shows over 30 years of data, many clouds appear two years after the peak of the solar cycle.

Those scientists think the two-year gap is caused by a chemical process that starts in the planet’s atmosphere and takes time to produce clouds.

“This extraordinary data gives us the strongest evidence that Neptune’s cloud cover is correlated with the solar cycle,” said senior scientist Imke de Pater, as quoted from Digital TrendsMonday, August 21.

“Our findings support the theory that the Sun’s UV rays, when strong enough, can trigger the photochemical reactions that produce Neptune’s clouds,” he added.

However, more work is needed. For example, increased UV sunlight can produce more clouds and fog, but can also darken them, reducing Neptune’s overall brightness.

Storms on Neptune rising from the atmosphere affect cloud cover, but are not associated with photochemically generated clouds and can therefore complicate studies of correlations with solar cycles.

Continued observations of Neptune are also needed to see how long the clouds that are barely present today will last.

“We have seen more clouds in the new Keck image taken at the same time that NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope observed the planet, these clouds are particularly visible at northern latitudes and at high altitudes, as would be expected from the observed increase in flux UV sun for about 2 years,” said de Pater.

The combined data from the Hubble Telescope, the Webb Telescope, the Keck Observatory, and the Lick Observatory will enable further investigations into the physics and chemistry that led to Neptune’s dynamic appearance.

This could in turn help deepen scientists’ understanding not only of Neptune, but also of exoplanets, as many planets outside the Solar System are thought to have Neptune-like qualities.

Tags: neptune planet sun outer space

2023-08-21 13:05:00
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