The upper layers in the atmospheres of gas giants—Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune—are hot, just like Earth’s. But unlike Earth, the Sun is too far from these outer planets to account for the high temperatures. Their heat source has been one of the great mysteries of planetary science. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-04-saturn-atmosphere-hot.html…
Tag: uranus
Origins of Uranus’ oddities explained by Japanese astronomers
The ice giant Uranus’ unusual attributes have long puzzled scientists. All of the planets in the solar system revolve around the sun in the same direction and in the same plane, which astronomers believe is a vestige of how our solar system formed from a spinning disc of gas and dust. Most of the planets also rotate in the same direction,…
Image: Hubble hooks a one-arm galaxy
NGC 4618 was discovered on April 9, 1787, by the German-British astronomer William Herschel, who also discovered Uranus in 1781. Only a year before discovering NGC 4618, Herschel theorized that the “foggy” objects astronomers were seeing in the night sky were likely to be large star clusters located much farther away than the individual stars he could easily discern. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-03-image-hubble-one-arm-galaxy.html…
Is Uranus Losing Its Atmosphere?
Mars was once covered by oceans, but lost its atmosphere over time, according to Gina DiBraccio, a space physicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and project scientist for the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN mission. Is the same thing happening to Uranus? The magnetic bubble surrounding the giant gas planet may be siphoning its atmosphere off into space,…
Old gas blob from Uranus found in vintage Voyager 2 data
Buried inside data Voyager 2 gathered at Uranus more than 30 years ago is the signature of a massive bubble that may have stolen a blob of the planet’s gassy atmosphere. Source: https://www.livescience.com/uranus-gas-blob-voyager-2-discovery.html
Uranus is leaking atmospheric gases into space
A new analysis of data from NASA’s Voyager 2 mission has revealed that the atmosphere of Uranus is leaking. The ice giant Uranus is perhaps the most u… Source: https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/335755/uranus-is-leaking-atmospheric-gases-into-space…
Will we soon see potentially habitable exoplanets more clearly?
Because stars are so much brighter than their planets, we’ve barely begun to glimpse distant exoplanets, or planets orbiting distant stars. Now a new technology promises to provide better imaging of these potentially habitable exoworlds. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/exoplanets-direct-imaging-potential-habitability…
Revisiting decades-old Voyager 2 data, scientists find one more secret about Uranus
Eight and a half years into its grand tour of the solar system, NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft was ready for another encounter. It was Jan. 24, 1986, and soon it would meet the mysterious seventh planet, icy-cold Uranus. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-03-revisiting-decades-old-voyager-scientists-secret.html…
Top tips for binocular stargazing
Whether you’re a beginning stargazer or a veteran of thousands of starry nights, binoculars can be your best friend. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/top-tips-for-using-ordinary-binoculars-for-stargazing…
What if super-puff planets have rings?
All 4 of the gas giant planets in our solar system – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune – are known to have rings. Could many of the so-called super-puff or cotton candy exoplanets have rings instead of super low densities? Source: https://earthsky.org/space/super-puff-cotton-candy-exoplanets-with-rings…