Uranus might be full of surprises

[kpete]

....when University of Arizona astronomer Erich Karkoschka took another look, he saw a different story. He presented his findings this week at the meeting of the Division for Planetary Science of the American Astronomical Association.

Karkoshchka believes that Uranus's southern hemisphere rotates in a way never before seen in gas giants. A gas planet's thick atmosphere, filled with clouds, typically shows the same rate of rotation at the top and bottom. But on Uranus, it seems, the southern hemisphere is cycling much more quickly than up north — as much as 15 percent faster.

"The unusual rotation of high southern latitudes of Uranus is probably due to an unusual feature in the interior of Uranus," Karkoshcka said in a statement. "While the nature of the feature and its interaction with the atmosphere are not yet known, the fact that I found this unusual rotation offers new possibilities to learn about the interior of a giant planet."

Data on gas giants in general are few and far between, so anything that Karkoshcka can glean about Uranus's core would help scientists understand the other planets like it.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2014/11/14/uranus-might-be-full-of-surprises/?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost

[Scootaloo]

1. ...Sigh

That poor planet and its name.

[longship]

8. The accent goes on the first syllable.

And the A is a short A, pronounced "ah"

So it's proper pronunciation is YUR-ah-nus, low hanging sophomoric humor notwithstanding (so to speak).

[Fred Sanders]

11. Correct. Folks should use the correct pronunciation, it is only right.

[WinkyDink]

15. BOTH pronunciations are correct.

[longship]

30. Sorry, you are wrong. Astronomers do not say yur-A-nus. nt

[Art_from_Ark]

41. Merriam-Webster recognizes BOTH pronunciations

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/uranus

[longship]

42. Well, Merriam-Webster was not written by astronomers.

And pop culture -- I imagine from the obvious joke -- is partially the origin of the yur-A-nus pronunciation. But I can't remember the last time I heard an astronomer pronounce it that way.

It's YUR-ah-nus, with a short A and the accent on the first syllable.

I confess that it's a bit of a bugaboo of mine.
Sorry.

My regards.

[BeanMusical]

44. Here's the solution:

Professor Farnsworth: I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all.

Fry: Oh. What's it called now?

Professor: Urrectum. Here, let me locate it for you.

[longship]

47. DUzy! ;) nt

[still_one]

52. Why so technical just uasshole serves the purpose without any big

words like rectum

[hfojvt]

45. I bet it is the other way around

that it was pronounced as anus until the junior high thugs noticed and then suddenly the new pronunciation was created and propagated. "They're laughing at us for saying anus, we need to start saying yoor-an-us."

[longship]

46. You may be correct.

[CrispyQ]

54. I think you would like this book:

There Is No Zoo in Zoology: And Other Beastly Mispronunciations
by Charles Harrington Elster
November 1, 1988

http://www.amazon.com/There-Is-Zoo-Zoology-Mispronunciations/dp/0020318308

There is a companion book, "Is There a Cow in Moscow?" that is also, good, but not quite as good as Zoo.

I love these books!

[AnalystInParadise]

64. So Astronomers

control how words are pronounced in situ of the dictionary......... I never knew scientists had this power.

[longship]

66. Well, astronomers named the thing. So yes. nt

[AnalystInParadise]

67. hmmmm

Does the Oxford committee know that they are powerless in the face of science when it comes to words?

[Ricochet21]

69. The dictionary says

1. UR-ah-nus
2. ur-RAY-nus

[Nevernose]

62. The Titan was translated as "Ouranos"

In the 1800s -- in all the classical mythology texts -- so I always assumed that was the correct phonic translation.

[True Blue Door]

33. We would have sent an orbiter there already if not for how it would play in the press.

"Uranus Probed (titter titter)."

We should just go to the Latinized Greek spelling, "Ouranos."

[Initech]

49. They changed it in the 26th century. It's now called "Urectum".

[Orsino]

60. Wrecked 'em? It tidally locked 'em! n/t

[longship]

61. Another DUzy worth response. :rofl: nt

[Ricochet21]

68. It's name should be

Prometheus

[skippy66]

2. I bet!

Especially after my 5 alarm chili

[Liberal_in_LA]

38. lol

[SheilaT]

3. I'm going to be quite silly and suggest

that a version of Global Warming is going on in Uranus's southern hemisphere.

[Jackpine Radical]

19. Not a theory

to be blown off lightly.

[True Blue Door]

34. Uranus is the coldest planet in the solar system.

If you dumped liquid nitrogen into it, you would warm it.

[SheilaT]

36. I sent the link on this article to my son, the budding astrophysicist,

and his response was: "like Neptune, badly in need of an orbiter mission, though that is likely to be several decades out."

[True Blue Door]

37. I was an astrophysics student for a while at Berkeley.

Had to leave because of health issues making the work load impractical.

[Warren DeMontague]

39. Well Cassini at Saturn has been a scientific as well as visual goldmine.

I agree, I'd like to see orbiters at both Neptune and Uranus. There is a lot of interesting real estate in the Solar System, though.

[SheilaT]

48. Same astrophysicist son now says:

Why oh why couldn't it have been given a proper Latin name like "Caelus?"

[IDemo]

4. Just a note

Although the classic pronunciation lends itself to great laughs, almost all astronomers pronounce it "YUR-uh-niss".

[KamaAina]

10. No help there.

"Urine-us".

[Bobbie Jo]

26. *snort*

[PeoViejo]

28. Trickle-down?

I often get
that warm feeling
on the back of my neck.

[customerserviceguy]

29. Or

"You're in us."

Yep, no help.

[Cha]

13. I liked neither pronunciation and found my own way which should be quite exceptable..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5818468

[awoke_in_2003]

16. They say "po tah toe" too...

[jberryhill]

5. You're not kidding

[Thor_MN]

6. I hate when that happens...

"When did I eat corn?"

[JeffHead]

7. You never know what kid of shit you'll find up there.

[hifiguy]

9. I will leave the inevitable jokes to others.

But in all seriousness cosmology and astrophysics are perhaps the most fascinating subjects I know.

[Cha]

12. It's always full of surprises.. I've known this for a long time.. ever since I started

studying the Planets. And, I pronounce it "U RON US".. so as not to confuse it with another referral.



Uranus is a greenish-blue planet, twice as far from the Sun as its neighbor Saturn. Uranus wasn't discovered until 1781. Its discoveror, William Herschel, named it Georgium Sidus (the Georgian star) after the English king, George III. Later its name was changed to Uranus, after an ancient Greek sky god, since all the other planets had been named after Roman and Greek gods.

Size: 4 times larger than Earth in diameter Diameter: 32,193 miles (51,810 km)

Surface: Little is known Atmosphere: Hydrogen, helium, and methane

http://www.factmonster.com/science/astronomy/planet-uranus.html

[dmr]

21. What a gorgeous picture.

It looks like a beautiful opal.

[Cha]

23. Isn't dmr.. the Planet are Incredible!

[CrispyQ]

55. Wish I could rec.

Lovely!

[TwilightGardener]

14. LOL. Let's hope not.

[awoke_in_2003]

17. In honor of George Takei...

"Oh my"

[Boom Sound 416]

18. That's the same thing my proctologist said

[hootinholler]

20. The older I get

The more I'm surprised by it.

[Aerows]

22. I went to Taco Bell today

Pintos and Cheese and 2 Taco Supremes. Not much could surprise me.

[aggiesal]

24. Talk about a setup?

This is way to easy.

Uranus might be full of surprises?

Really?

Can we even hold back?

[rug]

25. It's stellar!

[Old Nick]

27. Cheap

Just cheap.

[MrScorpio]

31. Maybe we should launch a probe to investigate.

[madinmaryland]

32. Uhmm. That's what my wife says to me every morning...

[El Supremo]

51. Along with everyone who knows you.

[madinmaryland]

70. HOW ABOUT THEM BRONCOS!!

[Warren DeMontague]

35. But you'll just have to wait until Christmas

to find out for sure.

[muriel_volestrangler]

40. Since Uranus rotates on its side (axial tilt 98 degrees, compared to Earth's 23)

that would be my first place to look for why one hemisphere was behaving differently from the other at one point in its year (which is 84 of your Earth years). And if this all comes from data from Voyager 2, 3 decades ago, things might be quite different by now. 1986 was its southern hemisphere summer solstice.

Uranus has an axial tilt of 97.77°, so its axis of rotation is approximately parallel with the plane of the Solar System. This gives it seasonal changes completely unlike those of the other major planets. Other planets can be visualized to rotate like tilted spinning tops on the plane of the Solar System, whereas Uranus rotates more like a tilted rolling ball. Near the time of Uranian solstices, one pole faces the Sun continuously whereas the other one faces away. Only a narrow strip around the equator experiences a rapid day–night cycle, but with the Sun low over the horizon as in the Earth's polar regions. At the other side of Uranus's orbit the orientation of the poles towards the Sun is reversed. Each pole gets around 42 years of continuous sunlight, followed by 42 years of darkness.[49] Near the time of the equinoxes, the Sun faces the equator of Uranus giving a period of day–night cycles similar to those seen on most of the other planets. Uranus reached its most recent equinox on December 7, 2007.[50][51]
Northern hemisphere Year Southern hemisphere
Winter solstice 1902, 1986 Summer solstice
Vernal equinox 1923, 2007 Autumnal equinox
Summer solstice 1944, 2028 Winter solstice
Autumnal equinox 1965, 2049 Vernal equinox

One result of this axis orientation is that, averaged over the Uranian year, the polar regions of Uranus receive a greater energy input from the Sun than its equatorial regions. Nevertheless, Uranus is hotter at its equator than at its poles. The underlying mechanism that causes this is unknown. The reason for Uranus's unusual axial tilt is also not known with certainty, but the usual speculation is that during the formation of the Solar System, an Earth-sized protoplanet collided with Uranus, causing the skewed orientation.[52] Uranus's south pole was pointed almost directly at the Sun at the time of Voyager 2's flyby in 1986. The labeling of this pole as "south" uses the definition currently endorsed by the International Astronomical Union, namely that the north pole of a planet or satellite is the pole that points above the invariable plane of the Solar System, regardless of the direction the planet is spinning.[53][54] A different convention is sometimes used, in which a body's north and south poles are defined according to the right-hand rule in relation to the direction of rotation.[55] In terms of this latter coordinate system it was Uranus's north pole that was in sunlight in 1986.

The phys.org article that the Washington Post links to does mention this, but only in passing. Now, perhaps they're confident that Uranus is so far from the Sun that it can't have seasons, but if that is why 'the interior' is being given as the cause, I think they ought say so explicitly.

[Jamastiene]

43. Oh, it definitely is full of surprises.

It never ceases to amaze me.

[sibelian]

50. Not for ME, dear.

[El Supremo]

53. Yeah, it's covered by Klingons.

[Iggo]

56. You don't know tha half of it.

[LostInAnomie]

57. It surprises me daily...

... like when I bend down to tie my shoes.

[RandySF]

58. I'm sorry, I do my best to keep it clean.

[Orsino]

59. Oh, you can't imagine how full of surprises.

It is truly a gas giant.

[Vattel]

63. Wow. Is that really a picture of uranus? It's beautiful.

[trackfan]

65. Are there rings around Uranus? n/t

[MrMickeysMom]

71. Only if you don't practice good hygiene ...

Hey, somebody had to say it!