{"id":275396,"date":"2023-08-24T22:15:25","date_gmt":"2023-08-24T20:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=275396"},"modified":"2023-08-24T22:15:38","modified_gmt":"2023-08-24T20:15:38","slug":"do-sunspots-make-clouds-on-neptune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=275396","title":{"rendered":"Do Sunspots Make Clouds on\u00a0Neptune?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Spaceweather.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From DR.TONY PHILLIPS<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aug. 23, 2023<\/strong>\u00a0(Spaceweather.com<\/a>): A\u00a0new paper<\/a>\u00a0in the research journal\u00a0Icarus<\/em>\u00a0offers dramatic proof that solar activity can affect planetary weather. The big surprise: The planet is Neptune, 2.5 billion miles from the sun. Images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope over a period of 28 years show bright clouds forming in sync with the 11-year solar cycle:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The connection between Neptune and solar activity is surprising to planetary scientists because Neptune is our solar system\u2019s farthest major planet. It receives only 0.1% of the sunlight we get on Earth. Yet Neptune\u2019s cloudy weather seems to be driven by solar activity, and not the planet\u2019s four seasons, which each last approximately 40 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other planets in our solar system don\u2019t behave this way. While clouds on Earth may be influenced by the solar cycle, the modulation is no more than a few percent; and even that small amount is controversial. Neptune\u2019s clouds, on the other hand, are bright, flamboyant and global. Their correlation with the solar cycle is obvious at a glance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chavez and her colleagues believe they have an explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur findings support the theory that the sun\u2019s ultraviolet rays, when strong enough, may be triggering a photochemical reaction that ultimately leads to high-altitude clouds on Neptune,\u201d says Imke de Pater, emeritus professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley and a senior co-author of the study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their paper describes how UV rays from the sun (which are strongest when the sunspot number is high) penetrate Neptune\u2019s upper atmosphere and break apart molecules of methane gas. This sets off a chemical reaction yielding hydrocarbons (C\ud835\udc65H\ud835\udc66). If these hydrocarbons sink into the atmosphere, they could condense to form hazes and clouds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Above:<\/strong>\u00a021 years of images from the Keck Observatory in Hawaii confirm Hubble\u2019s observations. [more<\/a>]<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Why doesn\u2019t this happen on every planet? \u201cNeptune is unique,\u201d says de Pater. Unlike other planets in our solar system, Neptune has a lot of methane in its stratosphere. (How it gets there is a mystery, but that\u2019s another story.) Solar UV rays have little trouble reaching the gas and kick-starting cloud formation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on the data so far, it seems to take about two years for Neptune\u2019s clouds to fully form once the solar cycle reaches its peak. Solar Cycle 25 is rising now with a peak expected in 2024. This means Neptune\u2019s cloudy season is about to begin. Stay tuned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The big surprise: The planet is Neptune, 2.5 billion miles from the sun. Images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope over a period of 28 years show bright clouds forming in sync with the 11-year solar cycle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":275403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691821991,691820785,691819344,691822065],"class_list":{"0":"post-275396","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-neptune","9":"tag-solar-activity","10":"tag-solar-cycle-25","11":"tag-uv-rays","13":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0PIA01492-1440x900-1.jpg?fit=1440%2C900&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-19DS","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":274891,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=274891","url_meta":{"origin":275396,"position":0},"title":"Neptune’s Disappearing Clouds Linked to the Solar Cycle","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"22\/08\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Weather forecast for Neptune: After sunny weather for the past few Earth years, we'll see increasingly more clouds over the next few years.","rel":"","context":"In \"NASA's James Webb Space Telescope\"","block_context":{"text":"NASA's James Webb Space Telescope","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=nasas-james-webb-space-telescope"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0STScI-01H7K7SPFJWZX8JDAC8FYB81WN.jpg?fit=1200%2C466&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0STScI-01H7K7SPFJWZX8JDAC8FYB81WN.jpg?fit=1200%2C466&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0STScI-01H7K7SPFJWZX8JDAC8FYB81WN.jpg?fit=1200%2C466&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0STScI-01H7K7SPFJWZX8JDAC8FYB81WN.jpg?fit=1200%2C466&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0STScI-01H7K7SPFJWZX8JDAC8FYB81WN.jpg?fit=1200%2C466&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":299296,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=299296","url_meta":{"origin":275396,"position":1},"title":"A Curious Correlation -Sunspots vs. Major Hurricane Frequency","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"01\/02\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"How about the weather on the other planets in our solar system? Might it be influenced by galactic cosmic rays just like here on Earth? The clouds of Neptune captured by the Hubble Space Telescope were obtained over nearly 30 years over which is plotted the solar UV radiation during\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Cosmic Rays (CR)\"","block_context":{"text":"Cosmic Rays (CR)","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=cosmic-rays-cr"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/0-The-clouds-of-Neptune.jpeg?fit=1172%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/0-The-clouds-of-Neptune.jpeg?fit=1172%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/0-The-clouds-of-Neptune.jpeg?fit=1172%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/0-The-clouds-of-Neptune.jpeg?fit=1172%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/0-The-clouds-of-Neptune.jpeg?fit=1172%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":195432,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=195432","url_meta":{"origin":275396,"position":2},"title":"Astronomers surprised by \u201adramatic warming ‘at Neptune\u2019s south pole","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"11\/04\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Neptune Planetary temperature conundrums are not confined to Earth. Nobody foresaw the observed changes that occurred on Neptune between 2018 and 2020.\u2013 \u2013 \u2013An international team of astronomers have used ground-based telescopes, including the European Southern Observatory\u2019s Very Large Telescope (ESO\u2019s VLT), to track Neptune\u2019s atmospheric temperatures over a 17-year\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/0neptune-is-cooler-than.jpg?fit=1200%2C896&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/0neptune-is-cooler-than.jpg?fit=1200%2C896&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/0neptune-is-cooler-than.jpg?fit=1200%2C896&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/0neptune-is-cooler-than.jpg?fit=1200%2C896&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/0neptune-is-cooler-than.jpg?fit=1200%2C896&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":214180,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=214180","url_meta":{"origin":275396,"position":3},"title":"A New Form of Space Weather on Betelgeuse","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"18\/08\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"You\u2019ve heard of a CME, a \u201ecoronal mass ejection. \u201c","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-714.png?fit=1200%2C406&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-714.png?fit=1200%2C406&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-714.png?fit=1200%2C406&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-714.png?fit=1200%2C406&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-714.png?fit=1200%2C406&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":418927,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=418927","url_meta":{"origin":275396,"position":4},"title":"Tropical timings \u2013 the orbit of\u00a0Uranus","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"28\/12\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"The idea here is to demonstrate that the Uranus orbit period on the\u00a0solar simulator\u00a0is in tropical years, using the same process as in our Neptune orbit post (here).","rel":"","context":"In \"Sidereal orbit period\"","block_context":{"text":"Sidereal orbit period","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=sidereal-orbit-period"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0Screenshot-2025-12-28-164033.png?fit=1200%2C895&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0Screenshot-2025-12-28-164033.png?fit=1200%2C895&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0Screenshot-2025-12-28-164033.png?fit=1200%2C895&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0Screenshot-2025-12-28-164033.png?fit=1200%2C895&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0Screenshot-2025-12-28-164033.png?fit=1200%2C895&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":217596,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=217596","url_meta":{"origin":275396,"position":5},"title":"A Big CME Heads for Venus","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"06\/09\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"A CME billowed away from the farside of the sun yesterday, Aug. 30th, and it was spectacular. Coronagraphs onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) recorded a full halo storm cloud","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/image-326.png?fit=960%2C600&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/image-326.png?fit=960%2C600&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/image-326.png?fit=960%2C600&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/image-326.png?fit=960%2C600&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/121246920"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=275396"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":275405,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275396\/revisions\/275405"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/275403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=275396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=275396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=275396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}