Well, the weather outside Uranus is frightful.
That’s the conclusion reached by scientists parsing data from the Hubble Space Telescope, reported website The Conversation.
Despite residing on the solar system’s outer fringes some 1.6 billion miles from Earth, scientists have managed to resolve several Uranus enigmas after the telescope recorded unique — and violent — weather patterns on the far-out planet.
When NASA space probe Voyager 2 zipped past Uranus in 1986, the greenish-blue orb appeared to be devoid of any notable physical features. Only recently are scientists discovering just how dynamic and multifaceted its atmosphere appears to be.
Uranus, which is the lone planet in our solar system that rotates on its side, has higher concentrations of water and methane and lesser amounts of light gases such as helium and hydrogen. The bizarre axis tilt was likely caused billions of years ago during a collision with an object probably larger than Earth.
The celestial crash would have released internal heat reserves or led to the formation of a particle layer that essentially insulates the planet and restricts heat flow into space.
Rotating around a huge cloud system is a smaller mist of methane ice. This could be due to extensive summers around the northern pole that reign for 21 years, resulting in perpetual sunlight while the southern pole is awash in darkness.
Uranus’ wind speeds bluster at 560 mph, while temperatures reside in the -300º range.
