Name: How Voyager Discovered That Neptune is Oddly Warm and Stormy
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Despite Neptune's distance from the Sun, the Voyager mission discovers that Neptune is warmer than its neighbor, Uranus. And, it has the strongest winds of any planet in the Solar System.

Neptune has swirling clouds and strong winds. Can scientists figure out why?

How Voyager discovered that Neptune is oddly warm and stormy

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Despite Neptune's distance from the Sun, the Voyager mission discovers that Neptune is warmer than its neighbor, Uranus. And, it has the strongest winds of any planet in the Solar System.

Neptune has swirling clouds and strong winds. Can scientists figure out why?

How Voyager Discovered That Neptune is Oddly Warm and Stormy

Space & Flight

How Voyager Discovered That Neptune is Oddly Warm and StormyPublished: September 5, 2019FRAN BAGENAL: Neptune was a great excitement. It’s got swirling clouds, really strong winds: at 1,500 miles an hour, incredibly fast, the fastest winds that we’ve got in the solar system.LEIGH FLETCHER: One of the things that Voyager discovered was an immense dark vortex within the atmosphere, a huge swirling dark spot.DAVID GRINSPOON: We say it’s a “giant storm,” but just those words don’t fully contain…we’re talking about a storm the size of a planet Earth or larger.NARRATOR: And the surprises keep coming. Even though it’s much further out, Voyager discovers Neptune is warmer than Uranus. It emits two and a half times the amount of heat it receives from the sun.NARRATOR: And the source of the heat is another oddity of this strange planet.DERRICK PITS: In fact, when we look at this dynamic activity in these extraordinarily cold regions, we really are at a loss to understand just what’s going on here.NARRATOR: One theory is that the buildup of pressure beneath the thick layers of cloud turns the carbon in the methane into a rain made of diamonds; they then melt as they fall into the interior of the planet, producing the extra heat.

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