A massive dark storm on Neptune first spotted two years ago has suddenly changed direction, leaving experts without answers.
The storm was discovered in 2018 by the Hubble Space Telescope, where it was seen in the planet’s northern hemisphere. In 2019, it was seen heading towards the planet’s southern hemisphere, but in August 2020, it started to move back north again, unlike other dark spots seen on the ice giant in the past. Another smaller, dark spot was also seen, presumably part of the larger storm breaking into a separate storm.
“We are excited about these observations because this smaller dark fragment may be part of the dark spot disruption process,” Michael H. Wong of the University of California at Berkeley said in a statement. “This is a process that has never been observed. We have seen some other dark spots fade and they have disappeared, but we have never seen anything distorted, even though it is predicted in computer simulations.”
This Hubble Space Telescope snapshot of the dynamic blue-green planet Neptune reveals a monstrous dark storm (top center) and the emergence of a smaller dark spot nearby (top right). (NASA, ESA, STScI, MH Wong / University of California, Berkeley and LA Sromovsky and PM Fry / University of Wisconsin-Madison))
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NASA first flew past Neptune in 1989 on the Voyager 2 spacecraft and took pictures of two dark spots. It was not observed regularly by Hubble until 1994. Since then, the space telescope has been looking at the “Great Dark Spot” and other dark spots on the planet.
The dark storm in question is believed to be 4,600 miles across and the fourth observed on Neptune since 1993. Unlike hurricanes on Earth, which are under low pressure and rotate counterclockwise, these storms rotate with the clockwise and they are high pressure systems. But as they move towards the equator, they are affected by the Coriolis effect, which weakens them and eventually disintegrates after reaching what is called a “kill zone.” This particular storm didn’t.
(NASA, ESA, STScI, MH Wong / University of California, Berkeley and LA Sromovsky and PM Fry / University of Wisconsin-Madison)
“It was really exciting to see this one behave the way it should and then suddenly stop and swing back,” said Wong. “That was surprising.”
Wang believed that the smaller storm, albeit 3900 miles in diameter, was the result of the larger storm being disrupted, but that’s not the case, adding intrigue to its cause.
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“I didn’t think there was another vortex forming, because the little one is further towards the equator,” explained the researcher. So it’s in this unstable region. But we cannot prove that the two are related. It remains a complete mystery. ‘
Neptune is still relatively unexplored, as is Uranus, even as Voyager 2 captured images of both planets in 1986 and 1989.
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In August, researchers developed computer models suggesting that both planets are “mainly” made up of a strange form of water.
In March 2019, scientists at NASA JPL proposed a mission that would explore Neptune’s largest moon, Triton, which some have theorized could have an ocean hidden beneath its surface.