A Massive New Storm System Just Appeared Over Neptune. Do not be alarmed, but a bright storm system three quarters the width of our entire planet has emerged over Neptunes equator, in a region where no bright clouds have ever been witnessed before. The extremely surprising observation was made by astronomers Ned Molter and Imke de Pater of the University of California Berkeley, during a test run observing Neptune at twilight at the W. Do not be alarmed, but a bright storm system three quarters the width of our entire planet has emerged over Neptunes equator, in a region where no bright clouds. Get breaking Finance news and the latest business articles from AOL. From stock market news to jobs and real estate, it can all be found here. InformationWeek. com News, analysis and research for business technology professionals, plus peertopeer knowledge sharing. Engage with our community. SqHHyrD8/maxresdefault.jpg' alt='Ipod Ice Age: The Meltdown 2010' title='Ipod Ice Age: The Meltdown 2010' />M. Keck Observatory at Maunakea, Hawaii. The storm, which spans roughly 5,6. The Mystical Laws Video Download here. June 2. 6th and July 2nd, according to a press release issued by Keck this week. Historically, very bright clouds have occasionally been seen on Neptune, but usually at latitudes closer to the poles, around 1. Pater said in a statement. Never before has a cloud been seen at, or so close to the equator, nor has one ever been this bright. A distant ice giant thats only been visited by a single spacecraft, Voyager 2, the inner workings of Neptune remain largely mysterious to planetary scientists, although theyve witnessed some impressive meteorological action in its azure skies over the years. The Hubble Space Telescope saw a similar bright cloud complex in 1. Voyager 2 in 1. 98. In 2. 01. 5, a new dark vortex cropped up in Neptunes southern hemisphere. Scientists have been attempting to track the anti cyclone ever since, snagging some beautiful images with Hubble last year. As UC Berkeleys Mike Wong explained in a talk I attended at the American Geophysical Union annual meeting last December, dark spots often have these bright companion features which absorb strongly in the part of the spectrum associated with methane. When I spoke with Wong after his talk, he told me his team was trying to figure out why the dark vortex was drifting to the south. His research group was also exploring models to elucidate what actually makes dark spots dark. The most exciting possibility is that this could indeed be associated with a dark vortex, Wong said when I emailed him about the latest Neptune observations. We cant resolve enough detail to know, but this could be some type of wave activity associated with dark vortices. Watch breaking news videos, viral videos and original video clips on CNN. Remember Myspace Yeah, its still a thing. And for months, the social network reportedly had a security flaw that made it ridiculously easy to hack into any. A page for describing Main New 10s. The first uses of the year 2010 surged late in the 20th century as a 20 Minutes into the Future date as the year 2000. It would be great to image something like this with an extremely large telescope. Neptune orbiterDe Pater and Molter also suspect the bright clouds chilling near Neptunes equator could be related to gases rising up and condensing out of a deeply rooted dark vortex system. The clouds might also be an enormous convective system, similar to those seen on planets like Saturn. We were very surprised to learn that the storm was consistent with being right at the equatorits difficult to understand how a deep vortex could be sustained there, since the Coriolis force is zero, Molter said in an email to Gizmodo. It could be that the underlying vortex is a few degrees north or south of the equator, or that this cloud lacks an underlying vortex and will quickly shear apart. De Pater and Molter plan to continue investigating the colossal cloud complextheyre hoping to secure more observing time at Keck this fall. Neptune is the windiest planet in the Solar System, and studying its complex weather can shed light on the inner workings of ice giants, a club that it shares with just one other planetary oddball, Uranus. Unlike gas giants, which are composed mainly of hydrogen and helium, ice giants contain a larger share of heavier elements like oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen. They may even harbor hidden liquid water oceans. Discoveries like this one underline just how little we know about the atmospheres of the ice giants, Molter said. The article has been updated with comments from Molter and Wong.