Something Has Exploded In a Spectacular Fashion On Uranus

Something Has Exploded In a Spectacular Fashion On Uranus


gizmodo.com...

I'm sorry.

Interesting article.

I saw a thread about this the other day, and it piqued my interest in a planet I don't often think about or hear about. Hopefully some smart people at NASA will be able to blow our minds with some more cosmic knowledge when they figure out what's going on.

A friendly reminder, the other thread got close because of immature people not taking the OP seriously and making middle-school appropriate puns. Please don't let this thread suffer the same fate.

Am I the only one to get an odd feeling and sense of importance to this? No jokes come to mind when we are seeing a major event on a planet in our neighborhood right now. With everything else speculated about, said to be secret, and outright activity we're able to see around the solar system...No, I'm not really laughing on it. Perhaps we ought to turn our collective world focus for equipment off in that direction for a bit to figure out what caused such a large event.

Any of these should be of interest until we at least understand an event well enough to be sure it isn't something that could happen here on Earth too..and if it is, how and why. Hmmm.. Great story.

In my assessment it has to be an asteroid / comet.

Look at the white marks that appeared.

They are in a straight line, this makes it very low probability that it would be volcanic eruptions, because it would be extremely rare that only volcanoes in a straight line would erupt like this. Not impossible, just highly unlikely.

Remember Shoemaker-Levy and Jupiter?

As a large object such as an asteroid or comet gets near a massive planet it will get pulled apart into segments or portions, and this explains the dots on Uranus fairly well. As each segment hit the surface, it left a mark, and as the planet rotated each individual portion of the celestial body crashed into the planet. This left a line of 'marks' exactly like what happened with Jupiter and the comet that it absorbed.

Look up Shoemaker-Levy and review what happened there.
This is extremely similar in many respects.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
Am I the only one to get an odd feeling and sense of importance to this? No jokes come to mind when we are seeing a major event on a planet in our neighborhood right now. With everything else speculated about, said to be secret, and outright activity we're able to see around the solar system...No, I'm not really laughing on it. Perhaps we ought to turn our collective world focus for equipment off in that direction for a bit to figure out what caused such a large event.

Any of these should be of interest until we at least understand an event well enough to be sure it isn't something that could happen here on Earth too..and if it is, how and why. Hmmm.. Great story.

It could happen on Earth too, because this is a very common occurrence in the Universe almost certainly.

There are collisions between bodies in space all the time.

Originally posted by muzzleflash

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
Am I the only one to get an odd feeling and sense of importance to this? No jokes come to mind when we are seeing a major event on a planet in our neighborhood right now. With everything else speculated about, said to be secret, and outright activity we're able to see around the solar system...No, I'm not really laughing on it. Perhaps we ought to turn our collective world focus for equipment off in that direction for a bit to figure out what caused such a large event.

Any of these should be of interest until we at least understand an event well enough to be sure it isn't something that could happen here on Earth too..and if it is, how and why. Hmmm.. Great story.

It could happen on Earth too, because this is a very common occurrence in the Universe almost certainly.

There are collisions between bodies in space all the time.

True... Although that isn't exactly what I was thinking. There is a lot of talk about our Solar System moving on an orbit all it's own and how that is taking us into or though a cluttered area of space. So far, I haven't personally seen or heard about anything to support the idea that we're floating into a junkyard of floating garbage as one place called it...

If things like this happen with any increase in frequency, given those advance 'predictions', I'm likely to really perk up in a way I would never normally notice an asteroid hitting a distant planet. That's all.

Uranus is only a joke or funny when you are ignorant of your own language. The proper enunciation of the planets name leaves no room for grade school level humor.

Sorry....it's hard not to chuckle when I think that the explosion was probably cause by gas. Uranus has many different gases including hydrogen & helium. Could the suns rays, magnified through the ice, cause an explosion like this??

reply to post by muzzleflash


I also thought of Shoemaker-Levy when I saw the picture...



Very interesting. The line up would seem to hint at a comet or asteroid...

Shoemaker-Levy :



And great choice of words for the title...

Originally posted by LaughingatHumanity
Uranus is only a joke or funny when you are ignorant of your own language. The proper enunciation of the planets name leaves no room for grade school level humor.

Uranus is pronounced like this:

Ur-unus. "Your-Unus"

Not "Your-Anus" which is incorrect technically.

reply to post by SonoftheSun


Yeah and look at the way that each new 'white dot' also has "streaks" that taper off either side of it. This is also consistent with the rotational direction of the planet.

All of the clues point to asteroid / comet impact.

Originally posted by SonoftheSun
reply to post by muzzleflash

 

I also thought of Shoemaker-Levy when I saw the picture...

Very interesting. The line up would seem to hint at a comet or asteroid...

And great choice of words for the title...

I agree
A question is this false colour or is it the real colour cos it sure is purrdy.

reply to post by boymonkey74


Here is a link to a photo of Uranus in true-color.

link

The only problem with a comet or asteroid is that Uranus axis is tilted and whatever caused it seems to have done so in a way corresponding with the planet's spin: near vertical in the photos, not horizontal as one would expect someting in the planetary plane would do.

reply to post by muzzleflash


one can be tactful whilst exploring the alternatives and deeper meanings my friend

Like the other giant planets, Uranus has a ring system, a magnetosphere, and numerous moons.

Uranus's rings can sometimes appear to circle the planet like an archery target

Uranus had been observed on many occasions before its discovery as a planet, but it was generally mistaken for a star

Herschel's proposed name was not popular outside of Britain, and alternatives were soon proposed. Astronomer Jérôme Lalande proposed the planet be named Herschel in honour of its discoverer.

Swedish astronomer Erik Prosperin proposed the name Neptune which was supported by other astronomers who liked the idea to commemorate the victories of the British Royal Naval fleet in the course of the American Revolutionary War by calling the new planet even Neptune George III or Neptune Great Britain.

Bode opted for Uranus, the Latinized version of the Greek god of the sky, Ouranos. Bode argued that just as Saturn was the father of Jupiter, the new planet should be named after the father of Saturn.

In 1789, Bode's Royal Academy colleague Martin Klaproth named his newly discovered element "uranium" in support of Bode's choice. Ultimately, Bode's suggestion became the most widely used, and became universal in 1850 when HM Nautical Almanac Office, the final holdout, switched from using Georgium Sidus to Uranus.

I found this and thought I would add it. It's a size comparison between Uranus and Earth. It would seem, if this is anywhere close to accurate, that large spots on Uranus would represent a true E.L.E. event on earth and that is being rather kind about it.



Perhaps this is a real event of interest. I'm also rather surprised at how little we know about this rather massive planet and why it's as odd as it is in behavior and appearance in other light wavelengths like Infra Red. Interesting place indeed.... NASA could do worse than sending a few craft there to learn more.