For the first time, scientists have captured evidence of a sizable storm on the surface of Uranus. Using ground-based telescopes to gather the “unprecedented views,” a team of researchers says a massive polar cyclone is located on the planet’s north pole.
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“These observations tell us a lot more about the story of Uranus. It’s a much more dynamic world than you might think,” study lead author Alex Akins wrote in a press release announcing the news. “It isn’t just a plain blue ball of gas. There’s a lot happening under the hood.”
Using antenna dishes at Nex Mexico’s Very Large Array, Akins and his team were able to look under the clouds in Uranus’ atmospher to discover the polar cyclone.
“Does the warm core we observed represent the same high-speed circulation seen by Voyager?” Akins added. “Or are there stacked cyclones in Uranus’ atmosphere? The fact that we’re still finding out such simple things about how Uranus’ atmosphere works really gets me excited to find out more about this mysterious planet.”
Though previous studies in 2015 and 2021 have peered into the atmosphere of the planet, the latest study is the deepest observations yet. With the newest discovery, all but one of the planets in our solar system have been found to have polar cyclones at their poles. The only planet scientists have yet to discover the phenomenon on is Mercury.
Scientists expect much more research on Uranus to be completed in the coming years after the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine suggested researching the planet should be a top planet for researchers.
“We saw this mission as delivering absolutely transformative, breakthrough science because we know so little about these systems. We are sure there are going to be lots of surprises once we get there,” Robin Canup said in the report released by the group last April
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