Telescopes Reveal Why Neptune is More Blue Than Uranus
DannyB writes:
Telescopes reveal why Neptune is more blue than Uranus
Neptune and Uranus are so similar that scientists sometimes refer to the distant, icy planets as planetary twins. But these ice giants have one big difference: their color.
New space and ground-based telescope observations have revealed what's behind this difference in tone.
[...] Astronomers used the Gemini North telescope and NASA Infrared Telescope Facility, both in Hawaii, and the Hubble Space Telescope to create a model that could match up observations of Neptune and Uranus.
[...] The scientists determined that an excess of haze builds up in Uranus' atmosphere, which gives it a lighter appearance. This haze is thicker on Uranus than a similar atmospheric layer on Neptune, so it whitens the appearance of Uranus from our perspective.
Without this haze in either planetary atmosphere, astronomers believe both planets would be almost identically blue.
Shades of Uranus: Scientists know why the planet and Neptune are different hues of blue
[...] The study shows that embedded in the inner atmospheric planetary layers, there is even more haze than thought, rather than just icy clouds of methane and hydrogen sulfide. It is the first time a study took into account wavelengths from ultraviolet to near-infrared, rather than concentrating on a handful of light waves, authors said.
"It's also the first [study] to explain the difference in visible color between Uranus and Neptune," lead author Patrick Irwin, a planetary physics professor at Oxford University, said in a statement from the National Science Foundation's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, or NOIRLab.
It is good to understand phenomena in the atmosphere of other planets. But why didn't they say that Neptune is more Azure than Uranus?
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