Uranus might not be much of a mantrap , but this humble methamphetamine giant is proving to be far from boring . Rather than presenting astronomers with its commonly lacklustre and relatively featureless surface , it has been kicking up brilliantlyhuge stormssince August . There ’s actually so much activity going on that the resulting swarm systems are so bright that even unskilled astronomer can see them .
This unusually stormy weather has leave astronomers rather puzzled because it occurred at an unexpected time . Uranus hasno internal reservoir of heat , so it was presume that its atmospherical natural action was chiefly drive by sunlight . This acute natural process would have therefore been expected back in 2007 , when Uranus ’ equinox occurred and the Sun shine forthwith on its equator . Now , however , sunlight is frail on the areas in which the storm were recognize .
The excitement began on August 5 , when a squad of Berkeley stargazer spotted an strange amount of action on Uranus ’ northern hemisphere . Using telescopes at the Keck Observatory , the investigator were capable to identify a total of eight storm occurring on two consecutive sidereal day . One of the storms was so heavy that it calculate for 30 % of all luminance reflect by the planet at a wavelength of2.2 microns , which gives us information on clouds just below the scummy boundary of the stratosphere .
IR images of Uranus remove on August 6 .
The newsworthiness quickly made its way through the grapevine , and amateur stargazer could n’t wait to check out the activity for themselves . Throughout September and October , legion stargazers take note a lustrous fleck on the blue planet . However , when these images were compare with those of the highly bright storm snapped in near infrared by the Keck II telescope , it chop-chop became ostensible that they were not the same features .
Further investigation uncover that the spot piece up by the amateur was one of the characteristic highlighted by Keck image take on August 5 . This particular blotch was much deep in the aura than the bright violent storm seen by Keck , located beneath the upmost cloud level of methane ice in the planet ’s foggy , blue - greenish aura .
“ The colors and morphology of this cloud complex suggests that the tempest may be tied to a vortex in the deep atmosphere similar to two large swarm complexes seen during the equinox,”explainsplanetary scientist Larry Sromovsky .
Although the storm can still be observed , its morphology has change and now appear to be less intense . The squad retrieve that the bright features were probably caused byrising natural gas , such as methane , which contract into highly reflective clouds of methane chalk as they ascend through the atmosphere .
[ ViaUC BerkeleyandUniverse Today ]
