REAL LIFE NEWS: SOMETHING SURPRISING ABOUT URANUS
by Hazed
Try not to snigger at the planet name… but scientists who used to think the south pole of Uranus was a calm and quite boring place have now changed their mind.
Researchers have analysed images taken over thirty years ago by the Voyager 2 spacecraft, and found something surprising.
Old photos of the planet show a featureless ball, which scientists considered to be a bland place. But an astronomer from the University of Arizona has taken a closer look at the pictures and spotted something different. Erich Karkoschka thinks that the southern hemisphere rotates in a way that hasn’t been seen before in gas giants. The thick atmosphere in the south is moving as much as 15% faster than the northern hemisphere.
“The unusual rotation of high southern latitudes of Uranus is probably due to an unusual feature in the interior of Uranus,” Karkoshcka said in a statement. “While the nature of the feature and its interaction with the atmosphere are not yet known, the fact that I found this unusual rotation offers new possibilities to learn about the interior of a giant planet.”
It just shows that even old images can tell us something new.
