Highly detailed and scientific NASA research can confirm that something massive is coming out of Uranus.
As if space wasn’t already cursed, NASA scientists looking back through decades-old data from the Voyager 2 spacecraft have discovered a mysterious gas escaping from Uranus.
The data showed some mysterious force sucking the atmosphere straight out of the planet and into space.
Image: Space.com
Buried data reveals that when the spacecraft flew past the gas giant in 1986, it passed through something called a plasmoid that escaped and stole a big old cloud of the planet’s atmosphere along with it.
NASA have learnt from Voyager 2’s gassy expedition that the plasmoid itself was about 127,000 miles long and twice as wide. The data, first published in August 2019 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, will be able to give NASA a much more detailed understanding of Uranus’ atmospheric composition, however won’t be able to tell them everything.
“Imagine if one spacecraft just flew through this room and tried to characterise the entire Earth,” NASA researcher Gina DiBraccio said in a new press release. “Obviously it’s not going to show you anything about what the Sahara or Antarctica is like.”
Since the study began, scientists have confirmed that Uranus’ gas, no joke, smells like farts. The smell has been put down to the gas’ composition that includes ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, methane, and carbon dioxide.
Hydrogen sulfide is notorious for smelling like rotten eggs, so the nature of the smell doesn’t exactly come as a surprise.
NASA researchers are hypothesising that a similar unexpected release of gas may explain how Mars ended up as barren and dry as it is. However for this to be known for sure, NASA would have to fly another spacecraft back to Uranus and have a good rummage around.
“It’s why I love planetary science,” DiBraccio said. “You’re always going somewhere you don’t really know.”
