| Home Michael Ammar Solar System Solar System Summary Sun Sun's Statistics Mercury Mercury's Statistics Venus Venus' Statistics Earth Earth's Statistics Mars Mars' Statistics Asteroid Field Asteroid Field's Statistics Jupiter Jupiter's Statistics Saturn Saturn's Statistics Uranus Uranus' Statistics Neptun Neptun's Statistics Pluto Pluto's Statistics Picture Library |
 |
| Change In The Great Dark Spot The bright cirrus-like clouds of Neptune change rapidly, often forming and dissipating over periods of several to tens of hours. In this sequence spanning two rotations of Neptune (about 36 hours) Voyager 2 observed cloud evolution in the region around the Great Dark Spot at an effective resolution of about 100 kilometers (62 miles) per pixel. The surprisingly rapid changes which occur over the 18 hours separating each panel shows that in this region Neptune's weather is perhaps as dynamic and variable as that of the Earth. However, the scale is immense by our standards. The Earth and the Great Dark Spot are of similar size and in Neptune's frigid atmosphere, where temperatures are as low as 55 degrees Kelvin (-360 F), the cirrus clouds are composed of frozen methane rather than Earth's crystals of water ice. (Courtesy NASA/JPL) |
Send mail to [email protected] with questions or comments
about this web site.
Copyright � 1998 Michael Ammar.
