Move over Jupiter, now Neptune has a spot, too.
Scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope last month noticed a dark vortex in the distant planet's atmosphere.
Neptune's dark spots or vortices are high-pressure systems and are usually accompanied by bright "companion clouds," which are also now visible.
“Dark vortices coast through the atmosphere like huge, lens-shaped gaseous mountains,” said UCal-Berkeley research astronomer Mike Wong, who led the team that looked at the Hubble data. Wong said the companion clouds are similar to the pancake-shaped clouds that form near mountains here on Earth.
Neptune’s dark vortices tend to meander around and sometimes seem to speed up or slow down, NASA said. They also come and go on much shorter time scales, when compared to similar spots seen on Jupiter. Large storms on Jupiter, such as the planet's famed red spot, evolve over decades.
NASA announced that similar dark spots were spotted on Neptune in 1989 and in 1994, but this vortex is the first one observed there in the 21st century.
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