Tagged: Uranus

Scientists Detect X-Rays From Uranus

Many objects in space emit X-rays, including black holes, neutron stars, a special class of binary stars known as X-ray binaries, exploding stars called supernovae and their remnants, and our own sun. Most of the planets in our solar system, and even some of Jupiter’s...

Bizarre shape of Uranus’ ‘Frankenstein’ moon explained

The strange appearance of Uranus’ moon Miranda may finally have an explanation. Miranda resembles Frankenstein’s monster — a bizarre jumble of parts that didn’t quite merge properly. Now, researchers suggest they may know why Miranda looks so odd: Constant squeezing and stretching from Uranus caused...

NASA eyes close-up mission to Uranus, Neptune

New NASA mission ideas would study the gassy environments of Uranus and Neptune, two planets on the edge of the solar system that spacecraft have visited only once. The agency has several potential mission concepts on the table, including flybys, orbiters and even a spacecraft...

Something big crashed into Uranus and changed it forever

This composite image, created in 2004 with Keck Observatory telescope adaptive optics, shows Uranus’ two hemispheres. Credit: Lawrence Sromovsky, University of Wisconsin-Madison/W.W. Keck Observatory It turns out that Uranus is so weird because of a massive collision billions of years ago. A new study confirms...

Uranus: The Planet on a Very Tilted Axis

It’s funny. There are eight planets in this solar system and Neptune is the farthest from the sun. Yet it still releases more heat than Uranus, planet No. 7. Four times wider than Earth, Uranus is also about 14.5 times as massive as the world...

Scientists Confirm Uranus Stinks

Voyager 2 snapped this photo of the seventh planet from the sun back in 1986. Much of what we know about the planet has come from ground-based observations. NASA/JPL-CALTECH Uranus stinks. And we’re not joking. The enigmatic outer solar system planet has long had a...