This is a drawing depicting the motions in earth's atmosphere.
Click on image for full size
Image from: Random House Atlas

Motions in Neptune's Interior

Motions in the interior of a planet help to move heat from the inside to the outside.

The drawing shows a kind of movement that is usual in the atmosphere as well as the inside of a planet. Material moves the way water does in a pot that is boiling. In the drawing, there are three different red sheets of activity where the air is turning over.

The ice layers inside Neptune are warm enough to move in this way, but some scientists think that the interior of Neptune may have a different sort of motion. Motion inside Neptune's icy layers seem to be responsible for Neptune's magnetosphere.


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