The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) often captures breathtaking images of our universe, enchanting space enthusiasts. The social media accounts of the US Space Agency are a goldmine for those who enjoy educational videos and captivating images of Earth and space. In its recent post, the agency's Voyager 2 spacecraft shared a picture of Neptune's south pole.
In the image, the southern pole of Neptune is visible. NASA aptly described the image, "it curves along the bottom of the image, like a smile. From left to right along the curve, the planet is blue, fading into a pale yellow."
The space agency wrote on Instagram, "Our Voyager 2 spacecraft captured this image of Neptune's south pole as it sped away from the planet in 1989. Here's one cool fact about Neptune's south pole: it's hotter than the rest of the planet by about 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit)."
See the picture here:
NASA mentioned that Voyager 2 has been in operation since 1977 and is the only spacecraft to have ever visited Uranus and Neptune. During its travels through the outer solar system, Voyager 2 visited all four gas giant planets and discovered and photographed many of the planets' moons.
"In November 2018, Voyager 2 reached interstellar space, the region between stars filled with material ejected by the death of nearby stars millions of years ago. Its twin spacecraft, Voyager 1, has resided in interstellar space since August 2012. Voyager 1 and 2 are now exploring where nothing from Earth has flown before. In their current mission, the Voyager Interstellar Mission, these two adventurers will explore the outermost edge of the Sun's domain," the space agency added.
Earlier, astronomers observed a mysterious dark spot in Neptune's atmosphere for the first time from Earth. The observation was made using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile.
The astronomers also discovered an unexpected smaller bright spot adjacent to the dark spot.
The space-based observatory says that this is the first time a dark spot on Neptune has ever been observed using a telescope on Earth. New observations are published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
