Neptune has a 'warm' south pole, astronomers find

0 Comments | AFP, September, 2007

PARIS (AFP) — An international team of astronomers say that Neptune, long dismissed as a cobalt-blue gas giant cloaked in deathly cold, has a relatively warm south pole.

Temperature maps, made using Europe's Very Large Telescope (VLT) located in the Chilean desert, show that Neptune's south pole is warmer than anywhere else on the planet by about 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit), the team says.

By earthly standards, this may not seem much of a deal. But compared to an average temperature on the Solar System's outermost recognised planet of a frigid -200 C (-392 F), the south pole is almost balmy.

The warmth differential is enough to let methane gas, which elsewhere lies frozen in Neptune's upper atmosphere, to leak out through the south pole and...