About the planet, Neptune.

It's one of the weirdest planets scientists have ever found. Its weather is a phenomenon that is still confusing. Winds on the planet race at 1.5 times the speed of sound. But now, Neptune's dark storms are behaving in a way that defies all that we know about the planet.

Hubble Telescope

Since 1989, only Hubble has had the ability and "sensitivity in visible light" to track these storms that appear as dark spots. They have sequentially appeared and then faded away over the years.

Unruly Storms

* Neptune's storms are not your average Earth cyclone. They have deep roots that reach into the planet's core and this makes the storms susceptible to be moved about across the giant blue planet.

* And when they move south towards Neptune's equator, the storms disintegrate. As if it's a law of nature on Neptune, the storms take a direct path to the equatorial "kill zone".

* Only this time around, these two storms - the large one spotted first in 2018 and the smaller one in January, this year - didn't disappear. In fact, they reversed direction and are moving north.

Large Storm

7,403 km is its size, wider than the Atlantic Ocean on Earth.

2 - 5 years

is the average lifespan of a Neptune storm, as per estimates. These storms are high-pressure ones that rotate clockwise, in sync with the planet's rotation. In contrast, storms on Earth are low-pressure systems that rotate counterclockwise. Astronomers get to use the Hubble only one time a year to look at Neptune, making tracking of the planet's atmosphere difficult.

3rd

most massive planet in our solar system.

8th

and outermost planet from the Sun.

"It was really exciting to see this (storm) act like it's supposed to act and then all of a sudden it just stops and swings back. That was surprising......This is a process that's never been observed" Michael H Wong of the University of California at Berkeley.

Voyager 2

Two other dark storms were discovered by the Voyager 2 in 1989 as it flew by the planet - the only human-built spacecraft to ever cross Neptune. The first dark storm was "huge, a big monster (as big as planet Earth)", astronomer Heidi Hammel told The New York Times. But the two storms had disappeared before Hubble Telescope could observe them.

1,770 km/hr

speed of Neptune's winds.

Tailpiece.

Got up at 6, the chores. Washing machinex of bed linen. Was ready by a quarter to 10.

A quiet Christmas day with plenty of calls from/to friends.