1
00:00:02,040 --> 00:00:07,040
Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works. Hey, brain stuff,

2
00:00:07,080 --> 00:00:12,360
Speaker 1: Lauren vogelbamb here. Urinus stinks and I'm not joking. This

3
00:00:12,600 --> 00:00:16,520
Speaker 1: enigmatic Outer Solar System planet has long had a credibility problem,

4
00:00:16,720 --> 00:00:20,599
Speaker 1: with it being the butt of countless immature jokes. Now

5
00:00:20,640 --> 00:00:24,280
Speaker 1: astronomers have discovered a gas in Urinas's clouds that does

6
00:00:24,320 --> 00:00:29,840
Speaker 1: nothing to curtail this humor at all. Thanks science, The

7
00:00:29,880 --> 00:00:33,280
Speaker 1: newest study published in the journal Nature Astronomy has discovered

8
00:00:33,320 --> 00:00:36,840
Speaker 1: the chemical signature of hydrogen sulfide in the planet's clouds,

9
00:00:36,880 --> 00:00:40,559
Speaker 1: a compound that gives rotten eggs their distinctive stench. Besides

10
00:00:40,680 --> 00:00:44,360
Speaker 1: launching a bevy of new puns, this finding could transform

11
00:00:44,440 --> 00:00:47,519
Speaker 1: or understanding of how our Solar System evolved. It may

12
00:00:47,560 --> 00:00:50,400
Speaker 1: also help us to understand the atmospheres of massive planets

13
00:00:50,479 --> 00:00:54,680
Speaker 1: orbiting other stars. A first a bit of background. Uranus

14
00:00:54,760 --> 00:00:57,800
Speaker 1: has only been visited by a spacecraft once, when NASA's

15
00:00:57,840 --> 00:01:01,760
Speaker 1: Voyager to zipped past the planet in nineteen The fly

16
00:01:01,880 --> 00:01:05,919
Speaker 1: by produced many beautiful and iconic views of this almost featureless,

17
00:01:06,040 --> 00:01:09,920
Speaker 1: light blue world, and astronomers have made countless ground based

18
00:01:09,920 --> 00:01:13,479
Speaker 1: observations of Uranus in hopes of better understanding the composition

19
00:01:13,520 --> 00:01:17,320
Speaker 1: of its atmosphere. Despite these efforts, however, we know little

20
00:01:17,360 --> 00:01:20,720
Speaker 1: about this far away planet. But the discovery of hydrogen

21
00:01:20,760 --> 00:01:23,280
Speaker 1: sulfide is a big step forward, and it could only

22
00:01:23,319 --> 00:01:26,480
Speaker 1: be done using one of our planets most powerful observatories.

23
00:01:27,280 --> 00:01:31,120
Speaker 1: Using the near infrared integral field spectrometer that's attached to

24
00:01:31,240 --> 00:01:34,679
Speaker 1: the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii, astronomers were able to

25
00:01:34,720 --> 00:01:39,000
Speaker 1: detect the very slight spectroscopic signature of hydrogen sulfide in

26
00:01:39,040 --> 00:01:42,480
Speaker 1: the uppermost layers of uranus is clouds. This whiff of

27
00:01:42,560 --> 00:01:46,400
Speaker 1: hydrogen sulfide is only the tip of the ode differous iceberg. However,

28
00:01:46,880 --> 00:01:49,520
Speaker 1: the presence of this gas is indicative of a huge

29
00:01:49,560 --> 00:01:54,600
Speaker 1: reservoir below the obscuring cloud deck. Co investigator Lee Fletcher

30
00:01:54,720 --> 00:01:58,240
Speaker 1: of the University of Leicester, UK, in a Gemini North statement,

31
00:01:58,360 --> 00:02:01,960
Speaker 1: said only a tiny amount of hydrogen sulfide remains above

32
00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:05,000
Speaker 1: the clouds as saturated vapor, and this is why it's

33
00:02:05,040 --> 00:02:08,160
Speaker 1: so challenging to capture the signatures of ammonia and hydrogen

34
00:02:08,200 --> 00:02:12,560
Speaker 1: sulfide above cloud decks of Uranus. The superior capabilities of

35
00:02:12,600 --> 00:02:16,679
Speaker 1: Gemini finally gave us that lucky break Astronomers have long

36
00:02:16,800 --> 00:02:21,000
Speaker 1: argued over whether hydrogen sulfide or ammonia dominate Uranus's clouds.

37
00:02:21,520 --> 00:02:24,160
Speaker 1: It's well known that the inner massive planets Jupiter and

38
00:02:24,200 --> 00:02:28,560
Speaker 1: Saturn have atmospheres dominated by ammonia ice, whereas Uranus and

39
00:02:28,720 --> 00:02:33,040
Speaker 1: presumably Neptune do not. It's those very differences in atmospheric

40
00:02:33,040 --> 00:02:36,080
Speaker 1: conditions that place Jupiter and Saturn in the gas giant

41
00:02:36,120 --> 00:02:39,960
Speaker 1: category and Uranus and Neptune in the ice giant category,

42
00:02:40,360 --> 00:02:43,200
Speaker 1: and these differences reveal an insight as to where the

43
00:02:43,200 --> 00:02:47,880
Speaker 1: planets formed. As Fletcher said, during our Solar System's formation,

44
00:02:48,040 --> 00:02:51,680
Speaker 1: the balance between nitrogen and sulfur and hence ammonia and

45
00:02:51,880 --> 00:02:56,079
Speaker 1: Uranus's newly detected hydrogen sulfide, was determined by the temperature

46
00:02:56,240 --> 00:03:00,840
Speaker 1: and location of the planet's formation. The thought is that

47
00:03:00,919 --> 00:03:04,720
Speaker 1: early in our Solar System's history, the massive planets migrated

48
00:03:04,760 --> 00:03:08,680
Speaker 1: from where they initially formed, eventually setting into stable orbits

49
00:03:08,720 --> 00:03:12,120
Speaker 1: where we see them today. Through the analysis of chemicals

50
00:03:12,120 --> 00:03:15,600
Speaker 1: in their clouds, astronomers can now formulate theories as to

51
00:03:15,720 --> 00:03:18,640
Speaker 1: how far away from the Sun these giant worlds formed

52
00:03:18,880 --> 00:03:22,320
Speaker 1: and where they migrated from. With this information in mind,

53
00:03:22,480 --> 00:03:25,600
Speaker 1: astronomers can then look to other stars and gain an

54
00:03:25,600 --> 00:03:30,480
Speaker 1: insight as to how and where giant exoplanets formed. This

55
00:03:30,560 --> 00:03:33,640
Speaker 1: is all very interesting, but a big question that scientists

56
00:03:33,639 --> 00:03:36,880
Speaker 1: are likely answering right now is if we could inhale

57
00:03:37,200 --> 00:03:41,480
Speaker 1: Uranus's atmosphere, would it kill us? The smell would certainly

58
00:03:41,520 --> 00:03:44,200
Speaker 1: be unpleasant, but it's not the stench that would kill you.

59
00:03:44,640 --> 00:03:48,040
Speaker 1: A lead study author, Patrick Irwin of the University of Oxford,

60
00:03:48,120 --> 00:03:52,320
Speaker 1: UK explained in the press release suffocation and exposure in

61
00:03:52,400 --> 00:03:56,840
Speaker 1: the negative two hundred degrees Celsie's atmosphere, made mostly of hydrogen,

62
00:03:56,960 --> 00:04:00,120
Speaker 1: helium and methane, would take its toll along the or

63
00:04:00,160 --> 00:04:04,320
Speaker 1: the smell, So we'll skip the vacation plans, but still

64
00:04:04,400 --> 00:04:13,000
Speaker 1: keep an eye on this fascinating, if stinky planet. Today's

65
00:04:13,040 --> 00:04:15,480
Speaker 1: episode was written by Ian O'Neill and produced by Tyler

66
00:04:15,520 --> 00:04:19,159
Speaker 1: Clang with kind engineering assistance from Ramsay youngt. For more

67
00:04:19,200 --> 00:04:21,800
Speaker 1: on this and lots of other far out topics, visit

68
00:04:21,839 --> 00:04:35,279
Speaker 1: our home planet, how stuff Works dot com