Department of Energy Argonne National Laboratory Office of Science NEWTON's Homepage NEWTON's Homepage
NEWTON, Ask A Scientist!
NEWTON Home Page NEWTON Teachers Visit Our Archives Ask A Question How To Ask A Question Question of the Week Our Expert Scientists Volunteer at NEWTON! Frequently Asked Questions Referencing NEWTON About NEWTON About Ask A Scientist Education At Argonne Neptune and Wien's Law 
Name: Robert W.
Status: student
Age: 50s
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: 1/13/2003
Question:
Can the temperature of clouds on Neptune be measured using Wien's Law? As an example, if the maximum wavelength of emission from Neptune's clouds is 6.0 x 10 Exp-5 would the Temperature be 48.33K? Or does the blackbody principle requirement of Wien's Law not work in this case?

Replies:
More likely the distribution of frequencies would be fitted to Planck's radiation formula to obtain a more accurate measure of the average temperature. But what one obtains is a temperature averaged over the entire field of view.

Vince Calder


Click here to return to the Physics Archives

NEWTON is an electronic community for Science, Math, and Computer Science K-12 Educators, sponsored and operated by Argonne National Laboratory's Educational Programs, Andrew Skipor, Ph.D., Head of Educational Programs.

For assistance with NEWTON contact a System Operator (help@newton.dep.anl.gov), or at Argonne's Educational Programs

NEWTON AND ASK A SCIENTIST
Educational Programs
Building 360
9700 S. Cass Ave.
Argonne, Illinois
60439-4845, USA
Update: June 2012
Weclome To Newton

Argonne National Laboratory