The Mystery of Uranus Solved: Scientists Discover the Planet Glows With Heat.

Name: The Mystery of Uranus Solved: Scientists Discover the Planet Glows With Heat.
Uploaded: 2025-10-07T02:01:46+00:00
Duration: 3 min 17 s
Channel: Money Explainers

Money Explainers

Cosmic surprise! After decades of confusing data, a new analysis proves that Uranus does generate internal heat. This ice giant is more complex than we thought.
One of the solar system's most persistent enigmas is finally solved. Find out how a team of scientists revived old data to reveal the truth about Uranus's energy budget.
#CosmicMysteries #NASA #Astronomy
#UranusNotSoCold #Science #SolarSystem

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00:00The hidden truth of Uranus, an ice giant that's not so cold.

00:04Uranus, the ice giant and one of the most peculiar worlds in our solar system,

00:08has always been a challenge for science.

00:11It spins on its side, with one pole experiencing a 42-year summer

00:15and rotates in the opposite direction of almost all its neighbors.

00:20But, for decades, what truly baffled astronomers was its internal temperature.

00:24In 1986, the Voyager 2 probes flyby suggested an unusual finding.

00:31Uranus was surprisingly cold inside,

00:33while its giant companions Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune release much more heat than they receive from the Sun.

00:40A remnant of their violent formation four and a half billion years ago,

00:44Uranus appeared to emit almost nothing, barely the heat it absorbed from our star.

00:49This thermal blackout defied the fundamental theories of planetary evolution.

00:53To explain it, scientists considered extreme hypotheses,

00:57such as the planet being much older and having cooled off completely.

01:01Or even that the gigantic collision that knocked it onto its side

01:04might have blasted out all of its internal heat.

01:07As planetary scientist Amy Simon noted,

01:09all these projections hinged on that one single irrefutable data point from Voyager 2.

01:15It was a true cosmic cold case.

01:17However, a team of scientists from NASA and the University of Oxford

01:21decided to reopen the investigation.

01:24Armed with advanced computer models and motivated to unravel this enigma,

01:27they set out to re-evaluate the planet's thermal profile using decades of archived data.

01:33The team, led by Patrick Irwin, ran numerous simulations, focusing on a key concept.

01:39Uranus's total energy budget,

01:41the goal was to compare the energy it receives from the Sun

01:44versus the energy it releases back into space,

01:47both reflected and in the form of heat.

01:49To do this, they had to refine atmospheric models that integrated every known detail of the planet,

01:55from hazes to clouds, obtained by cutting-edge instruments like the Hubble Space Telescope.

02:00And that is how the discovery arrived.

02:03The new research, published in the monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society,

02:07confirmed a truth that had been hidden for nearly 40 years.

02:11Uranus does generate its own internal heat.

02:13The crucial finding was that Uranus releases approximately 15% more energy than it absorbs from the Sun.

02:20It is residual heat, a remnant of its formation, and a figure supported by an independent study.

02:26While it is still far less heat than its neighbor Neptune,

02:29which emits more than twice what it receives.

02:31This discovery corrects the solitary and confusing data point from Voyager.

02:352. This scientific breakthrough not only solves one of the most stubborn mysteries in our solar system,

02:42but is also of vital importance for the future of astronomy.

02:46By unraveling Uranus's thermal budget,

02:49scientists can better map the formation timeline of the giant planets.

02:52And crucially, given that the vast majority of exoplanets,

02:56discovered outside our solar system, are similar in size to Uranus.

03:00Understanding this ice giant allows us to better comprehend and characterize

03:04the thousands of distant worlds waiting to be explored.

03:08Uranus is no longer a simple cold outlier,

03:11but a key to unlocking the history of planet formation across the galaxy.

03:16Money Explore

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The Mystery of Uranus Solved: Scientists Discover the Planet Glows With Heat.

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