WEBVTT - How Does Uranus Work? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:04.320 Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio, 0:00:06.440 --> 0:00:10.360 Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel bum here. There are eight 0:00:10.400 --> 0:00:13.480 planets in this Solar system, and Neptune is the farthest 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:17.360 from the Sun, yet it still releases more heat than Urinus, 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:21.239 planet number seven, four times wider than Earth. Uranus is 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:24.319 also about fourteen point five times as massive as the 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:27.319 world we live on. After Jupiter and Saturn, it's the 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:31.720 third biggest planet in the Sun's orbit. Scientists have coined 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:35.320 an appropriate term for the large chili bodies like Urinus 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:39.160 ice giants. Neptune falls into the same category, but Uranus 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:41.760 is quite an odd duck compared to its neighboring planet. 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:46.280 For starters, Urinus spins on an extreme tilt, resulting in 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:50.320 some truly wild seasons around the polls. Even the ice 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:53.360 giants name is a bit peculiar, and not just because 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:56.960 it makes school kids chuckle. Okay, let's not kid ourselves. 0:00:57.040 --> 0:00:59.200 You're never too old to enjoy a good Urinus joke. 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:03.000 Headline writers certainly don't think so. If article titles like 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:06.160 NASA wants to probe Uranus in search of gas and 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:10.480 Uranus smells like farts are any indication these jokes. If 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:13.280 you're not getting them hinge on the spelling of Uranus, 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:16.840 you are a n u s allowing for an English 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:24.480 speaking mispronunciation as your anus meaning rectum that we're classy puns. Aside, 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:29.959 Uranus represents a break with nomenclatural tradition. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:34.240 and Neptune all took their names from Roman gods or deities. However, 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:39.000 Uranus uniquely was named after a Greek god. In the 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:42.320 religion of ancient Greece, Uranus was revered as the primordial 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:45.160 god of the sky. He had a son named Chronos 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:48.960 and a perhaps more famous grandson known as Zeus. Those 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:52.480 two figures were later conflated with two Roman deities, Saturn 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:56.880 and Jupiter. Though the planet Irness was discovered by astronomer 0:01:57.000 --> 0:02:00.920 William Herschel on March thirteenth one, he didn't give it 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:04.440 the name we used today. A loyal Britain Herschel wanted 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:08.600 to call this far away world Georgium Sidus or George's Star, 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:12.520 in honor of King George the Third, but by nature 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:17.240 that name was politically charged to avoid alienating non British stargazers. 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:21.919 German astronomer Johann Elert Buddha suggested calling the planet Uranus 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:28.200 in three. Eventually his alternative moniker went out. But back 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:32.440 to that axial tilt. Of planets rotate around an axis, 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:36.040 which is the imaginary line connecting their northern and southern poles, 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:40.920 and they simultaneously orbit on an imaginary plane around the Sun. Now, 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:44.200 Earth has an axial tilt of twenty three point five degrees. 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:47.280 This means there's a twenty three point five degree angle 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:50.120 between Earth's axis and its plane of orbit around the Sun. 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:53.640 Without the tilt, our home world wouldn't have seasons or 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:58.720 possibly life. Urnus is skewed too, but to a much 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:02.000 greater extent. In relation to its orbital plane. The ice 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:04.919 giants axis has been tilted at a jaw dropping nine 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:10.240 point seven degree angle. Next to Saturn and Neptune, Uranus 0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:13.320 looks like it's lying on its side, So what's up 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:17.160 with the weird orientation? A computer simulation published in ten 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:20.399 suggests Uranus was hit by a huge protoplanet around four 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:23.480 billion years ago, and then again, there may have been 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:27.519 multiple impacts or a long gone circumplanetary disc could have 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:31.440 played a role. However, it happened. The tilt subjects both 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:36.240 poles to long dark winters and long bright summers. On Uranus, 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:39.240 one orbit around the Sun or one year, lasts for 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:43.360 roughly eighty four Earth years. Each pole is aimed almost 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:46.160 directly at the Sun for about twenty one straight Earth 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:49.880 years during its summer season. Meanwhile, the other pole faces 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:54.560 the opposite direction, enduring a long dark winter. Despite the 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:57.600 extreme tilt, Uranus is warmer at the equator than it 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:01.080 is at either pole. Nobody knows I and this isn't 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:05.480 the planet's only mystery. Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune all radiate 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:07.760 more than twice as much heat as they receive from 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:12.240 the Sun, yet Uranus's heat output is significantly lower. This 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:17.440 disparity has long baffled planetary scientists. As we already mentioned, 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:20.719 Uranus and Neptune are both ice giants. Planets of this 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:23.720 sort have rocky cores covered by mantles rich in an 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:28.920 icy half frozen slush of ammonia, methane, and water. Next up, 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:33.280 there's the atmosphere, whose outer level is full of hydrogen, helium, 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:38.000 and even more methane. Researchers have found that Uranus's atmospheric 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:42.000 clouds contain hydrogen sulfide, a compound responsible for the rotten 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:46.159 eggs stench we all know and hate. So yes. Uranus 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:50.440 literally stinks to boot. The densest part of its atmosphere 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:54.320 sees brutal temperatures of negative two hundred forty three to 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:57.960 negative three hundred and seventy degrees fahrenheit. That's a negative 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:02.160 one fifty three to negative to eight degrees celsius. That's 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:07.120 hardly a welcoming environment for any future astronauts, but at 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:10.200 least the color scheme would be familiar. Earth isn't the 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:13.960 only blue planet in the Solar System. Methane absorbs red light, 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:18.400 giving Uranus and Neptune deep blue complexions. Of the two worlds, 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:23.040 Irness looks slightly greener. Since nineteen seventy seven, we've known 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:26.800 that Irness has a ring system around its equator. To date, 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:31.120 astronomers have counted thirteen rings encircling the planet. The structures 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:34.240 are relatively dim and lack the fine particles observed in 0:05:34.279 --> 0:05:37.839 other ring systems like Saturns. Each one is composed of 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:41.400 debris chunks that are gulf ball sized at minimum. For 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:45.240 some reason, smaller material gets exiled into space between these rings. 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:49.640 Ranness also has twenty seven known moons, twenty five of 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:54.279 which were named after shakespeare characters like Ophelia, Juliette, Desdemona, Puck, 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:59.440 and Miranda, whose namesake appears in The Tempest. Geologically complex 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:04.279 Miran contains the single policed cliff known to humankind, dubbed 0:06:04.400 --> 0:06:07.559 Verona Rupez. It has an estimated height of twelve point 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:11.799 four miles that's twenty kilometers, meaning that if you happened 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:14.159 to be walking along its peak and you happened to 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:17.840 fall off, you would plummet for twelve minutes straight before 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:22.919 hitting the ground. Other satellites of note include Cicaras and Caliban. 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:26.200 While most of Urness's moons spin in the same direction 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:29.320 as the planet does, these two revolve the other way. 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:32.800 Scientists think they were once independent objects that the ice 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:37.719 giants gravity ensnared by the way. Caliban is another Tempest character, 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:42.080 and Cicarax was said to be his mother. From its 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:45.360 weird rings to its puzzling climate, Urness has found plenty 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:48.159 of ways to surprise us. Only time will tell what 0:06:48.279 --> 0:06:52.520 further mysteries the planet holds until then. Although it's very dim, 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:55.880 Urnus is visible to the naked eye on some dark, 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:59.560 clear nights, if you have sharp vision, if not so much, 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:08.440 It's easily visible with binoculars or a telescope. Today's episode 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:11.280 was written by Mark Mancini and produced by Tyler clang Or. 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:13.040 More on this and lots of other topics. Besit hows 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:15.480 Stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production of our 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:18.000 Heart Radio. More podcasts in my heart Radio, visit the 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:20.720 heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:21.560 your favorite shows.