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28 Jun 1998 - NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and several ground-based instruments show that temperatures on Neptune's largest moon have increased dramatically since the Voyager space probe in 1989. So much so, in fact, that Triton's surface of frozen nitrogen is turning into gas, making its thin atmosphere denser by the day. "At least since 1989, Triton has been undergoing a period of global warming," says astronomer James Elliot, professor of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Percentage-wise, it's a very large increase." Elliot and colleagues from the Lowell Observatory and Williams College reported their findings in the June 25 issue of Nature. Triton's 5 percent increase in temperature from about -392 to -389 degrees F would be like the Earth experiencing a jump of some 22 degrees F in just nine years. See full article:
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