Unexpected events on Neptune

This time we are going to the most distant planet in the solar system at least until the famous planet number 9 is discovered, if it exists, I mean Neptune, since on August 24 the southern European observatory published a statement where reported that a Mysterious dark spot had been detected on Neptune and something even stranger, next to it was an unexpected smaller bright spot.

It is the first time that a dark spot has been observed with a terrestrial telescope on this bluish planet. Neptune is named after the Roman god of the sea. It is said to be a frozen giant since it has a mass 17 times that of the Earth and under the dense layer of atmosphere there is a thick layer composed of frozen methane, ammonia and water, but ice cream must be put in quotes because, although it may seem synonymous with still, frozen, this is not the case.

On Neptune under its clouds things are very complex. That thick atmospheric layer is something very different from what we see here on Earth. Let's not think about delicate cotton clouds, no, that is a mixture of ammonia, methane and water at a very high pressure due to the weight of the atmosphere, they are in a fluid state with high electrical conductivity.

Below that fluid at a depth of 7000 km, it has such extreme conditions that the methane decomposes into diamond crystals and literally rains diamond the size of hailstones, the outer layers of Neptune, what we see of the planet, are very cold, the The average temperature in them is minus 18 degrees Celsius, but as we go down the temperature increases and since the core of the planet is very hot.

Under the clouds at a pressure of 50 times the pressure of the Earth's atmosphere we would be at a temperature of 0 degrees Celsius and we would find clouds of water ice, on Neptune there are powerful storms with winds that reach speeds of 2,200 kilometers per hour, exceeding the speed of sound, these are just some of the curiosities and mysteries of Neptune and that it is almost unexplored.

It has only been visited by one spacecraft, Voyager 2, on August 25, 1989, and just in passing, what could that recently discovered dark spot be? It is not the first dark spot found on Neptune, for example, in At the time of Voyager 2's flyby in the southern hemisphere of the planet there was a large dark spot, astronomers believe that dark spots like this are probably the result of air particles darkening as ice and clouds mix in the atmosphere and the spots in particular would be located in a layer that would be under the layer of haze that we see and that gives that bluish tone to the planet.

But then what would the bright spot be? Right now there is no answer. Astronomers say that the bright spot was a surprise result. Literally, Michael Wong, co-author of the study and researcher at the University of California, stated that “in the process we discovered a rare type of deep bright cloud that had never before been identified even from space,” said this researcher, that rare type of cloud appeared as a bright spot right next to the main dark spot.

The data from the observatory that made this discovery, Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the Southern European Observatory, have shown that this bright cloud was at the same level of the atmosphere as the main Dark Spot, but the main question of all this, how is it that In the same region of the planet and at the same level of the atmosphere, two phenomena occur that give such radically different results, a dark spot and a bright spot.

We still do not have an answer, the mysteries of the universe are made of these things, mysteries that we must continue investigating to find out the truth about this intriguing blue planet.

Thank you for visiting my blog. If you like posts about #science, #planet, #politics, #rights #crypto, #traveling and discovering secrets and beauties of the #universe, feel free to Follow me as these are the topics I write about the most. Have a wonderful day and stay on this great platform :) :)

! The truth will set us free and science is the one that is closest to the truth!