LOS ANGELES, Aug. 18 (Xinhua) — Astronomers using data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories have revealed a link between the disappearance of clouds on Neptune and the sun’s 11-year cycle.
The link between Neptune and solar activity surprises planetary scientists because Neptune is the outermost major planet in the solar system and receives sunlight with an intensity about 0.1 percent as intense as Earth, according to NASA.
However, Neptune’s cloudy general weather appears to be driven by solar activity, not the planet’s four seasons, each of which lasts about 40 years, according to NASA. /ts/
