Uranus leak more heat than we thought

when Voyageer 2 I flew in Uranus in 1986, the spacecraft discovered an amazing low level of the inner heat of the planet. Since then, scientists have believed that Uranus is the strange person in the family of the giant planets in our solar system – the others are Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune – who all tend to heat more than they absorb from the sun.

Now, a new study indicates that scientists Maybe you have a wrong idea About Voyageer 2 data: Uranus has an internal heat similar to its planetary siblings. To study, it was published on Monday in Geophysical research messagesThe researchers analyzed contracts from the archive data available on the ice giant, and found that Uranus emitted from the internal heat by 12.5 % more than the sun.

This is still less than heat less than the other three giant planets, from which more than 100 % of the solar energy they receive. However, the study shows that Uranus does not move away from the general scholars of how to form giant planets and develop.

To reach this conclusion, the researchers analyzed data on the global energy balance in Uranus over the entire orbit of the sun, which takes 84 years. The team took this monitoring data and combined with mathematical models, and finding great seasonal fluctuations led by the planet’s land changes in sunlight. The new results are compatible with a previous paper on the power balance in Uranus, published in Monthly notifications of the Royal Astronomical Society in May.

However, none of the study provides a clear answer to the reason why Uranus inner temperature of other gas and ice giants has decreased. Uranus may have “a different internal structure or an evolutionary date compared to other giant planets,” the researchers pointed out in A. statement. The study also found that Uranus’s energy levels change according to its 20 -year -old season. These fluctuations, along with the planet’s heat budget, “provide restrictions on observation that can be used to develop the theories of planets formation of giant planets,” the study said.

Thus, the paper answers and raises questions about Uranus, which researchers cite as a good cause of NASA future missions to investigate the iceberg.

“By revealing how Uranus is stored and loses heat, we gain valuable visions of the basic processes that make up the atmosphere of the planet, weather systems and climate systems,” said Liming Lee, a co -author of study and physicist at Houston University, in the statement. “These results help expand our view on the Earth’s atmosphere and climate change challenges.”