Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel bum here. There are eight
Speaker 1: planets in this Solar system, and Neptune is the farthest
Speaker 1: from the Sun, yet it still releases more heat than Urinus,
Speaker 1: planet number seven, four times wider than Earth. Uranus is
Speaker 1: also about fourteen point five times as massive as the
Speaker 1: world we live on. After Jupiter and Saturn, it's the
Speaker 1: third biggest planet in the Sun's orbit. Scientists have coined
Speaker 1: an appropriate term for the large chili bodies like Urinus
Speaker 1: ice giants. Neptune falls into the same category, but Uranus
Speaker 1: is quite an odd duck compared to its neighboring planet.
Speaker 1: For starters, Urinus spins on an extreme tilt, resulting in
Speaker 1: some truly wild seasons around the polls. Even the ice
Speaker 1: giants name is a bit peculiar, and not just because
Speaker 1: it makes school kids chuckle. Okay, let's not kid ourselves.
Speaker 1: You're never too old to enjoy a good Urinus joke.
Speaker 1: Headline writers certainly don't think so. If article titles like
Speaker 1: NASA wants to probe Uranus in search of gas and
Speaker 1: Uranus smells like farts are any indication these jokes. If
Speaker 1: you're not getting them hinge on the spelling of Uranus,
Speaker 1: you are a n u s allowing for an English
Speaker 1: speaking mispronunciation as your anus meaning rectum that we're classy puns. Aside,
Speaker 1: Uranus represents a break with nomenclatural tradition. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn,
Speaker 1: and Neptune all took their names from Roman gods or deities. However,
Speaker 1: Uranus uniquely was named after a Greek god. In the
Speaker 1: religion of ancient Greece, Uranus was revered as the primordial
Speaker 1: god of the sky. He had a son named Chronos
Speaker 1: and a perhaps more famous grandson known as Zeus. Those
Speaker 1: two figures were later conflated with two Roman deities, Saturn
Speaker 1: and Jupiter. Though the planet Irness was discovered by astronomer
Speaker 1: William Herschel on March thirteenth one, he didn't give it
Speaker 1: the name we used today. A loyal Britain Herschel wanted
Speaker 1: to call this far away world Georgium Sidus or George's Star,
Speaker 1: in honor of King George the Third, but by nature
Speaker 1: that name was politically charged to avoid alienating non British stargazers.
Speaker 1: German astronomer Johann Elert Buddha suggested calling the planet Uranus
Speaker 1: in three. Eventually his alternative moniker went out. But back
Speaker 1: to that axial tilt. Of planets rotate around an axis,
Speaker 1: which is the imaginary line connecting their northern and southern poles,
Speaker 1: and they simultaneously orbit on an imaginary plane around the Sun. Now,
Speaker 1: Earth has an axial tilt of twenty three point five degrees.
Speaker 1: This means there's a twenty three point five degree angle
Speaker 1: between Earth's axis and its plane of orbit around the Sun.
Speaker 1: Without the tilt, our home world wouldn't have seasons or
Speaker 1: possibly life. Urnus is skewed too, but to a much
Speaker 1: greater extent. In relation to its orbital plane. The ice
Speaker 1: giants axis has been tilted at a jaw dropping nine
Speaker 1: point seven degree angle. Next to Saturn and Neptune, Uranus
Speaker 1: looks like it's lying on its side, So what's up
Speaker 1: with the weird orientation? A computer simulation published in ten
Speaker 1: suggests Uranus was hit by a huge protoplanet around four
Speaker 1: billion years ago, and then again, there may have been
Speaker 1: multiple impacts or a long gone circumplanetary disc could have
Speaker 1: played a role. However, it happened. The tilt subjects both
Speaker 1: poles to long dark winters and long bright summers. On Uranus,
Speaker 1: one orbit around the Sun or one year, lasts for
Speaker 1: roughly eighty four Earth years. Each pole is aimed almost
Speaker 1: directly at the Sun for about twenty one straight Earth
Speaker 1: years during its summer season. Meanwhile, the other pole faces
Speaker 1: the opposite direction, enduring a long dark winter. Despite the
Speaker 1: extreme tilt, Uranus is warmer at the equator than it
Speaker 1: is at either pole. Nobody knows I and this isn't
Speaker 1: the planet's only mystery. Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune all radiate
Speaker 1: more than twice as much heat as they receive from
Speaker 1: the Sun, yet Uranus's heat output is significantly lower. This
Speaker 1: disparity has long baffled planetary scientists. As we already mentioned,
Speaker 1: Uranus and Neptune are both ice giants. Planets of this
Speaker 1: sort have rocky cores covered by mantles rich in an
Speaker 1: icy half frozen slush of ammonia, methane, and water. Next up,
Speaker 1: there's the atmosphere, whose outer level is full of hydrogen, helium,
Speaker 1: and even more methane. Researchers have found that Uranus's atmospheric
Speaker 1: clouds contain hydrogen sulfide, a compound responsible for the rotten
Speaker 1: eggs stench we all know and hate. So yes. Uranus
Speaker 1: literally stinks to boot. The densest part of its atmosphere
Speaker 1: sees brutal temperatures of negative two hundred forty three to
Speaker 1: negative three hundred and seventy degrees fahrenheit. That's a negative
Speaker 1: one fifty three to negative to eight degrees celsius. That's
Speaker 1: hardly a welcoming environment for any future astronauts, but at
Speaker 1: least the color scheme would be familiar. Earth isn't the
Speaker 1: only blue planet in the Solar System. Methane absorbs red light,
Speaker 1: giving Uranus and Neptune deep blue complexions. Of the two worlds,
Speaker 1: Irness looks slightly greener. Since nineteen seventy seven, we've known
Speaker 1: that Irness has a ring system around its equator. To date,
Speaker 1: astronomers have counted thirteen rings encircling the planet. The structures
Speaker 1: are relatively dim and lack the fine particles observed in
Speaker 1: other ring systems like Saturns. Each one is composed of
Speaker 1: debris chunks that are gulf ball sized at minimum. For
Speaker 1: some reason, smaller material gets exiled into space between these rings.
Speaker 1: Ranness also has twenty seven known moons, twenty five of
Speaker 1: which were named after shakespeare characters like Ophelia, Juliette, Desdemona, Puck,
Speaker 1: and Miranda, whose namesake appears in The Tempest. Geologically complex
Speaker 1: Miran contains the single policed cliff known to humankind, dubbed
Speaker 1: Verona Rupez. It has an estimated height of twelve point
Speaker 1: four miles that's twenty kilometers, meaning that if you happened
Speaker 1: to be walking along its peak and you happened to
Speaker 1: fall off, you would plummet for twelve minutes straight before
Speaker 1: hitting the ground. Other satellites of note include Cicaras and Caliban.
Speaker 1: While most of Urness's moons spin in the same direction
Speaker 1: as the planet does, these two revolve the other way.
Speaker 1: Scientists think they were once independent objects that the ice
Speaker 1: giants gravity ensnared by the way. Caliban is another Tempest character,
Speaker 1: and Cicarax was said to be his mother. From its
Speaker 1: weird rings to its puzzling climate, Urness has found plenty
Speaker 1: of ways to surprise us. Only time will tell what
Speaker 1: further mysteries the planet holds until then. Although it's very dim,
Speaker 1: Urnus is visible to the naked eye on some dark,
Speaker 1: clear nights, if you have sharp vision, if not so much,
Speaker 1: It's easily visible with binoculars or a telescope. Today's episode
Speaker 1: was written by Mark Mancini and produced by Tyler clang Or.
Speaker 1: More on this and lots of other topics. Besit hows
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