Why is it so challenging to reach Uranus, the most peculiar planet? Uranus is the only planet whose axis is tilted. As a result, one of its poles is always pointing at the sun and the other in the opposite direction, making it one of the strangest planets and also one of the least explored. Why have we done so little to explore this planet? Let’s begin with the fact that it is the only planet whose axis is tilted.
Uranus is the seventh planet in the solar system, the third largest and fourth most massive, and it is a gaseous world on which humans cannot walk for years. NASA and other space agencies have sent numerous exploration probes to investigate the Solar System’s planets, but it seems that whenever New Missions are proposed to the planets, Uranus is ignored more than its more distant sibling Neptune. To date, only one exploration probe has visited Uranus. Voyager 2 passed close to it in 1986 solely to gain momentum.
Why is there so little interest in exploring Uranus?
Uranus is not at all a dull planet; rather, it is one of the oddest and most fascinating planets. With a volume 60 times that of Earth, Uranus is composed of a dense mass of hazardous gases. Uranus and Neptune are similar in composition because they differ from the other gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn. Hence, astronomers may place them in a different group than the icy Giants. It has the coldest planetary atmosphere in the solar system with a minimum temperature of 49 Kelvin minus 224 degrees Celsius.
It also has a very complex cloud structure where it is believed that the lowest clouds are composed of water and the highest clouds are composed of ammonia and methane. Nothing to stop or sail on, only a mixture of gases and liquids that continuously mix until it reaches its center.
Why is it the only one that is completely inclined?
Uranus’ axis of rotation is tilted at an angle of 97.77 degrees relative to the plane of the Solar System. This causes the planet’s seasons to change in a completely different manner than the other main planets. The rotation of other planets can be pictured as spinning tops inclined with respect to the solar system plane, whereas Uranus rotates like a ball rolling inclined.
When Uranus’ solstices are coming up, one of its poles always faces the sun, while the other pole always faces the opposite direction. Only a limited zone around the equator sees a quick day-night cycle, but with the sun so low above the horizon as in Earth’s polar regions, on the other side of Uranus’ orbit, the pole’s orientation in the direction of the sun is reversed. Each pole receives 42 years of uninterrupted sunlight, followed by 42 years of Perpetual Darkness.
Can you imagine a planet where the night lasts 42 years?
The situation where the atmosphere doesn’t warm for decades can lead to some interesting atmospheric properties that don’t occur on any other planet. As the equinoxes approach, the sun aligns with Uranus’s equator, creating day night cycles similar to those seen on most other planets. As a result of the direction of the axis, the polar parts receive more solar radiation throughout the year than the equatorial regions.
However, the temperature of Uranus is higher at its equator than in its poles. The reason why the axis of the planet is so skewed is unknown, although it is thought that the planet may have collided with a huge protoplanet capable of achieving this orientation during its development. Another possibility is that the gravitational perturbations exerted by the other giant planets in the solar system have caused it to tilt in this direction.
As we have seen, Uranus is not a dull planet; on the contrary, it is a fascinating and unique world. However, there is a good reason why, in the entire history of space exploration, only one mission has visited Uranus. It is a difficult journey. The planet is roughly 3 billion kilometers or 1.8 billion miles from the Sun, which is 20 times further away than Earth.
As a result, any spacecraft must use rap Pro schmonk gaps between planets to take use of gravitational assistance, which can take up to 15 years. All spacecraft that are sent to the outer reaches of the solar system are also limited by sunlight, which becomes weaker as we move away from the Sun. Instead of solar panels, the mission must employ a nuclear power source, which is much more complicated to build and operate in addition to being much heavier.
The heavier a ship is, the more expensive it is, and the last thing space agencies want is to make their projects more expensive. The only way to communicate with a ship that visits the icy Giants would be to place a large satellite dish capable of emitting signals that reach Earth. As you can imagine, this would increase the weight and size of the spacecraft, not to mention the diffraction effects.
The radio signal sent by a spacecraft takes more than 20 minutes to reach Earth, and communication between the receiver and the sender would take 40 minutes, which is a long time. Therefore, a ship heading to Uranus would have to have programmed a series of tasks that would have to be executed automatically and without human intervention, something that, although it sounds simple, is not so simple when we consider that a spaceship travels at more than 20 kilometers per second.
Keeping both engineering and operations in sync is a crucial and seldom. Mission teams together for as long as it takes to complete the mission, which can be up to a decade between launch and the spacecraft’s arrival on the planet.
Despite its apparent insignificance, this problem has caused the cancellation of many missions and the delay of others by years, because the team that began working on a mission was not the same team that completed it. This was the case with the Voyager probes, which used VHS-type films to send images and software made specifically for this task to decode them on Earth. The equipment that performed that job, the software, and the people who knew how to use them no longer exist. So it is impossible to retake images with the Voyager cameras even if the probes were still in operation.
The new NASA priority
Due to the fact that Uranus and Neptune are the least understood planets in the solar system, NASA has spent years formulating the parameters of a 2030 mission to explore these bodies. NASA concluded in 2017 that it was necessary to study Both Worlds.
However, there is not enough money to launch two high-cost probes to the two planets, so it is necessary to prioritize. One option is to combine this Mission with visiting one or more Kuiper Belt objects, while another is to explore one of the two planets. Previously, NASA considered Both Worlds equally fascinating from a scientific standpoint. Both Uranus and Neptune are equally intriguing.
Despite the fact that Voyager 2 discovered Neptune and it was more active than Uranus, observations from the Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based instruments have shown that Uranus can be as active or more active than Neptune. On the other hand, Uranus’s Moon system is the worst known in the solar system, which compensated for Triton’s presence around Neptune.
Mission consisting of a 710 Orbiter equipped with an atmospheric probe that studies one of the ice giants and its moon system in detail, and since there is not enough funding for two orbiters, you must choose between studying the moon system of Uranus or Neptune. On the one hand, the moons of Uranus are the least understood, whereas we know that Neptune has Triton, a moon where there is likely water. Triton has shifted the scales in favor of Neptune because the community of Solar System ocean world researchers has designated it as one of its goals. Since Triton is a Kuiper Belt body trapped by Neptune, it likely has an interior ocean and a mantle of liquid water equivalent to Pluto’s. Other ocean worlds include Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Enceladus, Titan Etc. They are a priority for NASA because they possess the greatest potential for habitability in the solar system. According to OPHE, NASA’s next Flagship mission after Europa Clipper should be an Orbiter to Neptune.
