A Relatively Toasty South Pole on Neptune

At an average temperature of -392 degrees Fahrenheit, Neptune is a pretty chilly planet, but astronomers reported this week that it’s south pole is a good 18 degrees warmer than the rest. Orbiting 30 times farther away from the Sun than Earth, Neptune only gets about a thousandth of the sunlight our planet receives, but this does makes a difference. At the south pole, the warmer air creates a channel for methane gas to escape, and leak out of the atmosphere. Still, it doesn’t sound like that great of a place to live if we ever wear out this planet. Surely we’re going to need something a little warmer than a few hundred degrees below zero.—Gregory Mone

(Image credit: VLT/ESO/NASA/JPL/Paris Observatory)