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What is the Great Dark Spot of Neptune?
The Great Dark Spot was a huge spinning storm in the southern atmosphere of Neptune which was about the size of the entire Earth. Winds in this storm were measured at speeds of up to 1,500 miles per hour. These were the strongest winds ever recorded on any planet in the solar system!
What happened to the dark spot on Neptune?
The Hubble Space Telescope identified a storm in 2018, a dark spot some 4,600 miles across. Since that time, it appears to have drifted toward the equator but then swooped back up north, according to the latest Hubble observations.
What causes Neptune’s Great Dark Spot?
The high-altitude clouds are made up of methane ice crystals, which give them their characteristic bright white color. Scientists suspect these methane clouds accompany the storms that form dark spots, hovering above them the way lenticular clouds cap tall mountains on Earth.
Is the Great Dark Spot on Neptune bigger than Earth?
The Great Dark Spot (centre left) is 13,000 km (8,100 miles)—about the diameter of Earth—in its longer dimension. Accompanying it are bright, wispy clouds thought to comprise methane ice crystals.
Is the Great Dark Spot still on Neptune?
Dark spots may dissipate when they migrate too close to the equator, or possibly through some other unknown mechanisms. However, in 2016, an almost identical spot emerged in Neptune’s northern hemisphere. This new spot, called the Great Dark Spot (NGDS), has remained visible for several years.
How many dark spots does Neptune have?
two dark spots
Fast Facts
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Description | Neptune with two dark spots |
| Distance | Neptune was approximately 283 million miles from Earth at the time of observations |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The HST observations include those from program 16057 (M.Wong) |
Has any astronaut been to Neptune?
Neptune has Only Been Visited up Close Once: The only spacecraft that has ever visited Neptune was NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft, which visited the planet during its Grand Tour of the Solar System. Voyager 2 made its Neptune flyby on August 25, 1989, passing within 3,000 km of the planet’s north pole.
Can humans walk on Neptune?
Deep down inside Neptune, the planet might have an actual solid surface. At the very core of the gas/ice giant is thought to be a region of rock with roughly the mass of the Earth. In short, there is simply no way one could stand on the “surface of Neptune”, let alone walk around on it.
Why don’t we get diamonds from Neptune?
On Neptune, for example, beneath a hydrogen-helium atmosphere that is 3,000 kilometers thick lies an ice layer that is 17,500 kilometers thick. Diamond is denser than the methane, ammonia, and water left in the ice layer, so the carbon crystal would start to sink toward the planet’s core.
The find brings the total tally of observed Great Dark Spots on Neptune to six. The first two such disturbances were detected by NASA’s Voyager 2 probe during its Neptune flyby in August 1989, which provided the first up-close look at the mysterious blue planet. Hubble discovered the other four spots.
Does Neptune have a great dark blue spot?
When observed through a telescope, it appears as a greenish-blue disk without any definite surface markings. The great dark spot and the small dark spot are oval-shaped anticyclones in Neptune’s atmosphere that are thought to be caused by the difference in temperature between the heat-producing core and the frigid cloud tops.
What do scientists think the dark spots on Neptune are?
The Great Dark Spot on Neptune, witnessed by Voyager 2, was so large that it could contain the Earth. What researchers don’t understand much about is how these massive storms form, but they were able to study this dark spot in greater detail than previous storms. These storms on Neptune behave differently than hurricanes on Earth.
How fast are winds in the great dark spot on Neptune?
Around the edges of the storm, winds were measured blowing up to 2,100 kilometers per hour (1,300 mph), the fastest recorded in the Solar System. The Great Dark Spot is thought to represent a hole in the methane cloud deck of Neptune. The spot was observed at different times with different sizes and shapes. Oct 10 2019