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Because Neptune is not a solid body, its atmosphere undergoes differential rotation. The wide equatorial zone rotates with a period of about 18 hours, which is slower than the 16.1-hour rotation of the planet's magnetic field. By contrast, the reverse is true for the polar regions where the rotation period is 12 hours.
Venus rotates clockwise, and Uranus has been knocked on its side and rotates almost perpendicular to the rest of the Solar System. The ecliptic remains within 3° of the invariable plane over five million years, [ 2 ] but is now inclined about 23.44° to Earth's celestial equator used for the coordinates of poles.
For gaseous or fluid bodies, such as stars and giant planets, the period of rotation varies from the object's equator to its pole due to a phenomenon called differential rotation. Typically, the stated rotation period for a giant planet (such as Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) is its internal rotation period, as determined from the rotation ...
Its equator is almost exactly aligned with its orbital plane. [24] At present, Triton's rotational axis is about 40° from Neptune's orbital plane, hence as Neptune orbits the Sun, Triton's polar regions take turns facing the Sun, resulting in seasonal changes as one pole, then the other moves into the sunlight. Such changes were observed in 2010.
These expressions are for the so-called mean obliquity, that is, the obliquity free from short-term variations. Periodic motions of the Moon and of Earth in its orbit cause much smaller (9.2 arcseconds) short-period (about 18.6 years) oscillations of the rotation axis of Earth, known as nutation, which add a periodic component to Earth's obliquity.
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The Small Dark Spot, sometimes also called Dark Spot 2 or The Wizard's Eye, was an extraterrestrial vortex on the planet Neptune. [1] [2] It was the second largest southern cyclonic storm on the planet in 1989, when Voyager 2 flew by the planet. When the Hubble Space Telescope observed Neptune in 1994, the storm had disappeared. [3]
A mysterious floating island that rotates on its own axis has been discovered in Argentina. It's being called 'The Eye.' The island is a near perfect circle at 130 yards in diameter that shifts ...