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This could be a bit of a stinker. And where do you suppose it comes from when you pass gas?
Ur anus launched a 'bubble' 22,000 times larger than Earth into space?
Uranus is unquestionably strange. Rotating with mostly water, methane and ammonia, the seventh planet in the solar system is tilted by 98 degrees, so its magnetic poles take turns directly facing the sun. And its magnetic field is strangely misaligned with the planet's rotation, causing it to move wildly.
In 1986, the world of ice giants got what remains its only visitor from Earth - Voyager 2, which is now more than 18 billion kilometers from Earth but at that time was flying a mere 80,600 kilometers above Uranus' cloudy sky. . As it passed, Voyager 2 heard a strange magnetic whisper, a signal so ephemeral it went unnoticed.
More than three decades later, scientists were delving deep into the venerable spacecraft's data pool, hoping to find scientific mysteries that could help support a return mission to Uranus and its ice giant sibling, Neptune. They discovered this magnetic hiccup and realized that it represented the detection of a mass of electrically excited gas with a width 10 times the circumference of the Earth.
This gigantic bubble was a discarded part of Uranus' atmosphere. While only one has been seen, other gas missiles can also be launched every 17 hours, the time it takes Uranus to complete one rotation.
. Scientists consider the gas bubble to be a plasmoid, a type of structure that was not very well understood at the time of the flyby in January 1986, but which is now incorporated into scientists' concepts.
Plasmoids can extract charged particles from a planet's atmosphere and launch them into space. Scientists remember that changing a planet's atmosphere changes the planet itself. Uranus' situation is even more complex because the planet spins on its side and its magnetic field is tilted by both the axis and the plane in which all the planets lie.
As Voyager 2 flew directly through this plasmoid, scientists could use the archived data to measure the structure, which they believe is about 400,000 kilometers in diameter and could have stretched 204,000 kilometers in length, according to NASA. .
Ur anus launched a 'bubble' 22,000 times larger than Earth into space?
Uranus is unquestionably strange. Rotating with mostly water, methane and ammonia, the seventh planet in the solar system is tilted by 98 degrees, so its magnetic poles take turns directly facing the sun. And its magnetic field is strangely misaligned with the planet's rotation, causing it to move wildly.
In 1986, the world of ice giants got what remains its only visitor from Earth - Voyager 2, which is now more than 18 billion kilometers from Earth but at that time was flying a mere 80,600 kilometers above Uranus' cloudy sky. . As it passed, Voyager 2 heard a strange magnetic whisper, a signal so ephemeral it went unnoticed.
More than three decades later, scientists were delving deep into the venerable spacecraft's data pool, hoping to find scientific mysteries that could help support a return mission to Uranus and its ice giant sibling, Neptune. They discovered this magnetic hiccup and realized that it represented the detection of a mass of electrically excited gas with a width 10 times the circumference of the Earth.
This gigantic bubble was a discarded part of Uranus' atmosphere. While only one has been seen, other gas missiles can also be launched every 17 hours, the time it takes Uranus to complete one rotation.
. Scientists consider the gas bubble to be a plasmoid, a type of structure that was not very well understood at the time of the flyby in January 1986, but which is now incorporated into scientists' concepts.
Plasmoids can extract charged particles from a planet's atmosphere and launch them into space. Scientists remember that changing a planet's atmosphere changes the planet itself. Uranus' situation is even more complex because the planet spins on its side and its magnetic field is tilted by both the axis and the plane in which all the planets lie.
As Voyager 2 flew directly through this plasmoid, scientists could use the archived data to measure the structure, which they believe is about 400,000 kilometers in diameter and could have stretched 204,000 kilometers in length, according to NASA. .
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